Going Premium 3: sandboxes

Posted on by Inara Pey

So, another part of the Premium package is the use of exclusive sandboxes. I’m fortunate enough to have a build platform of my own right now – but what would it be like using one of them if I didn’t?

Some twenty sandboxes are available for use by Premium members in five groups of four apiece:

Note that all of the sandbox with the exception of the last four above are rated General. Bricker, Colborne, Goyer and Teagano are all rated Adult. All are subject to the usual rules: no combat, selling, gambling, advertising, boxes cleared-down every four hours, etc.

For those interested in trying the Linden Realms game, you’ll also find a portal on one of the sandboxes in each of the groups of four.

Performance-wise they all seemed pretty good: on Firestorm I was hitting 38-40 fps on average, even when building, lag was minimal ( shared the sandbox I was in with two other large builds).

I spent a happy time re-working my personal version of Fallingwater (yay for 64m prim sizes!), and while I have rarely used sandboxes in the past, I have encountered the odd problem in public sandboxes elsewhere, I found my time passed as quietly and as uninterrupted asit does building at home.

Happy building

The whole idea of Premium sandboxes struck me as “Meh,” before; but as I said, I have the luxury of having space to build, so seeing something like this as a benefit escaped me. Now I’ve tried four out (yup, I actually bounced around trying-out different regions!), I can see why they could well be attractive.

Certainly places to keep in mind should I ever opt to downsize land holdings!

Advertisement

Published by Inara Pey

Eclectic virtual world blogger with a focus on Second Life, VR, virtual environments and technology.

4 thoughts on “Going Premium 3: sandboxes”

  1. I’ve used them myself, having had to cut down on my land holdings. It’s the nicest public sandbox I’ve used yet. Now, in part it’s because they aren’t widely known yet, but having the requirement for Premium does serve as a very basic idiot-filter, much like the earlier days of SL. People are slightly less willing to grief when it’ll cost them ten bucks a pop. 🙂

    Like

  2. I can see the attraction, and anyone else that has tried building at a public sandbox while being shot at, and the center of attention for childish griefers. will understand also the need for these, But why cant LL sort out the public sandboxes?
    They should have staff on them, So they can ban griefers
    Best sandbox i use now is the beta grid, most builders i meet there seem to be the elite builders too, making amazing things, while others are experimenting with mesh.

    Like

  3. The sandbox I’ve been using most these days is the OpenSim instance running on my desktop. Scripting and physics don’t work exactly the same between that and SL but it’s close enough that all I need to do on SL is final tweaks. Plus I have as much space as I want with no auto-return and full local backups.

    The downside is that there isn’t much in the way of raw materials I can bring over from SL to use in my work, but it’s all for fun anyway so I take the challenge as an opportunity to learn how to make every part of something from scratch. 🙂

    Like

Comments are closed.