Forgotten City August 2015 (Flickr)
Ciaran Laval was perhaps the first blogger to bring word that Forgotten City, the marvellous mechanoid town, largely the brainchild of Jenne Dibou and Mandy Marseille, would be closing in September 2015.
His article, which also contains a link to Mandy’s SL Universe forum post announcing the news and which includes some of the fascinating history behind the region’s development, was followed by numerous other posts about the region and its closure. As such, I decided to hold off a while and pay a further visit in farewell once I had a little time available to put together a video on the region as (hopefully) a reminder to all of this utterly enchanting build, which I last wrote about in June 2013 (a further visit in 2014 sadly didn’t make it into these pages).
Forgotten City August 2015 (Flickr)
If you’ve not visited before, then I strongly, strongly urge you to do so before the gates of Forgotten City close, possibly forever. There is so much to see and charm and delight. Not only is the multi-tiered, steampunkish city beautifully scaled and executed (so much so that it was selected by the Lab as a location for some of the early in-world testing using the Oculus Rift), there really is so much to delight and discover.
Forgotten City August 2015 (Flickr)
You can, for example watch its mechanical populace go about their daily tasks, possibly in the hope that the human inhabitants responsible for the city – and them – might one day return. Or, if you prefer, you can board a steamship and journey elsewhere, or, witness the arrival of the cat-a-maran (emphasis on the “cat” – complete with mechanoid kittens!), or you can teleport high into the sky and to the City’s Winter Parkland or visit Jenne’s store, the islands it occupies held aloft over the city by three airships. You’ll also find games to be played and – for the careful explorers – hidden secrets to be found.
Forgotten City August 2015 (Flickr)
It’s not entirely clear when the gates will close – although it appears this will be later in September, rather than early on. Even so, if you do want to make a visit or a return visit, I’d recommend not leaving it too long, just in case.
SLurl Details
- Forgotten City (Rated: General)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
Reblogged this on Windlight Magazine and commented:
Inara reviews The Forgotten City, see it before it goes:
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So sad to see this one go! A group of us as part of a Medici U adventure, explored FC this spring and I was completely enthralled by the attention to detail and scale of this magnificent creation.
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It’s the closing of a work of art, quite ephemeral, quit amazing, evoking a sense that it was a city that was always waiting for something, in a kind of timeless sleep, the air warm, punctuated by the odor of dry leaves, and the sound of water and distant steam driven machines. These sad closings, often make me wonder and think about the idea that Linden Labs might have some kind of idea that somethings, as art, as part of itself in fact, might be worth keeping, as part of its legacy, it’s own past.
Apparently the Lab disagrees, and by it’s neglect wanders on into it’s future deprived of its own past, context less, lost, blind to it’s own creative past and the individuals that made it, in fact a wonder.
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I’ll miss the place. It has an odd, almost-haunted-but-not-quite feel to it and has, over time, gained a patina of strange reality. I was fortunate enough to borrow a friend’s gaming computer and Oculus Rift glasses and that was one of the places I went… Strange reality and stranger interactions. The sim can be totally empty and yet you can interact with it in a substantial manner.
I hope the store stays around, since their products work well and are artistically superb (and the scripting isn’t too shabby either).
The forgotten city will be missed…but—Linden Labs decided to keep the S.S. Galaxy; maybe they could decide to keep the Forgotten City as well. Both the S.S.Galaxy and Forgotten City would make superb Info Hubs for new Residents and possibly serve as residences as well. RL Steampunks would probably love to live in a Classic Steam City just as New Residents would enjoy life aboard a magnificent Ocean Liner.
There are excellent possibilities here for Linden Labs to improve the magic resident on their Servers and provide a safe and involving location for new Residents to become old Residents painlessly and enjoyably.
Who knows, it could happen.
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