I’ve always enjoyed Luis Lockjaw’s region builds, particularly his Templemore designs from Hesperia through to Lutz City, going by way of Elysium City, so an opportunity to visit his latest Templemore design – Templemore Cove – carried with it a certain anticipation.
Past Templemore builds have had something of a fantastical feel to them, one rooted in reality, but with a twist of fantasy that has made them attractive to the eye whilst tickling the the imagination. For this iteration, things are a little more straightforward: the presentation of a shoreline town clearly in a tropical / sub-tropical location, rich in palm trees and surrounded by off-shore islands sitting is water that – going by the trawlers docked to one side of the region – rich in fish.
The town itself could be anywhere, but has a distinctively central / southern American feel to it, so much so that by turn, the setting suggests it might be somewhere in Florida, at others perhaps somewhere like Cuba or another large Caribbean island, or perhaps somewhere like Panama or San Salvador.
Florida is particularly evoked by the luxury yachts and powerboats to the east, the pools and neon Motel signs. Cuba and South American townships are suggested by the sun-faded gay colours of buildings, be they apartment houses or places of business, together with – in places at least – the age of some of the types of vehicle to be found. Swimming pools are much in evidence, whilst the town is built along a grid pattern that is again suggestive of somewhere in the United States, as do the broad board walks. And whilst most of the buildings are shells, it doesn’t prevent visitors appreciating their attractiveness.
The Templemore builds have always had an association with music, and that is very much the case here, with stages to the south and east, whilst the north-side beach offers a chance to escape and relax.
It is clear that throughout, considerable care has been put into this design – as is always been the case with Luis’ region builds. However, it would be remiss of me if I didn’t point out that this detail comes at a cost: this is a full region with the private region land capacity bonus – and this has been used to the maximum in terms of the amount of mesh and texturing (and if not in terms of physical capacity), all of which can place a significant load on a view that is running with shadows enabled, a higher draw distance, etc.
As an example of this, whilst taking photos with shadows set and a draw distance of 190 metres, I found my fps bouncing fairly heavily between single-digits and mid-teens with under half-a-dozen avatars in the region, some times dropping as low as 4-4.2 fps, which made moving uncomfortable. Things were marginally better with shadows off, but it’s possible those on older systems may well find Templemore Cove heavy going.
Nevertheless, Templemore Cove has an attractiveness that is worth seeing, particularly if you do enjoy taking photos of Second Life locations.
SLurl Details
- Templemore Cove (rated: Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 