Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week ending Sunday, April 10th, 2022
This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Release viewer: version version 6.5.3.568554 – formerly the Maintenance J&K RC viewer, promoted Monday, February 28 – no change.
Goatswood, April 2022 – click any image for full size
My first introduction to the work of Hera (zee9 – then known as Kora) came getting on for a decade ago, when I first visited Venexia and Goatswood, two separate builds developed for role-play. At the time, both were popular spots for visitors, with Goatswood possibly the more popular by virtue of its more general setting. However, both departed Second Life in 2015 and while Venexia has reappeared from time to time since then, I think I’m right in saying Goatswood has largely been absent the grid. At least until now.
As pointed out to me by Cube Republic, Goatswood is now back (for a time at least), sharing Hera’s region with an updated version of her Whitby build (which I wrote about in October 2021 (see Visiting Dracula’s Whitby in Second Life), which I hope to get to in the next few days; for now I want to focus on Goatswood.
Goatswood, April 2022
Welcome to Goatswood
Well it is that time again when I get the call of the wild and must return to Goatswood 🙂 . It is a virtual Victorian Gothic novel [and] was always my favourite region of all the ones we created for RP 10 or so years ago. For me it had a real heart and soul that the others lacked; many people passed through it and made homes there. The role play was IMHO as good as it gets. This version is very different as there is no game set up, but I feel that for me this version is better in many ways I hope you like what you find.
Hera (zee9)
Set in the period 1860 – 1900, Hera describes the village as being somewhere in the Midlands of England – although I always felt it to be closer to the Cotswolds, something perhaps referenced in the fact that Hera modelled the basic design of Goatswood on Castle Combe, Wiltshire. It was developed specific for easy-going role-play set within that era, and while that may not be central to this current iteration, there is little doubt that Goatswood very much retains the heart and soul of the original.
Goatswood, April 2022
As is common with Hera’s recent builds, Whitby and Goatwood share a common landing point, both being on the same region. However, for this iteration of the builds, the landing point has also undergone a change, now having about it a touch of Harry Potter, presented as it is as a railway station with two steam trains are drawn up to the platforms. The red train to the right (when looking at them) offers a journey to Whitby, while the green train calls at Goatswood. Just click on the carriage through the open door to be transferred to the required destination.
Those who recall the original Goatswood may well recognise elements of this version – the railway station, the Roebuck Coach House, the church – but these have some subtle difference within them. The Roebuck, for example, now has a grand carving of a stag above the main door, while the church no longer has a steeple atop its tower. These, together with other changes to the setting that allow this iteration of Goatswood to stand apart from its namesake as a quiet independent setting, rather than an mere copy.
One of the major attractions of the original Goatswood was the care with which it had been built; there was a real sense of place in the way the village and its surroundings had been put together. This is also present within the new iteration. Anyone familiar with the Cotswolds or, more broadly, the counties of Oxfordshire, Worcestershire, or Warwickshire as a whole will realise the beauty of Hera’s build richly replicates the beauty of the countryside through those counties.
Exploring the region is something for which a good deal of time should be apportioned. While many of the houses may be shells, there is nevertheless a richness of detail awaiting discovery along the paths of the village and along the gardens. Those buildings – such as a Roebuck Coach House, the church and manor house, plus a couple of places outside of the village itself (which I’ll leave to you to find 😉 ) – do have interiors waiting discovery.
Goatswood, April 2022
The setting also retains much of the mystery of the role-play that formed a part of it – including a couple of places I confess I don’t remember, which is not to say they weren’t present back in 2013/14, when I made my original visit. While these may not be present to encourage role-play this time around (Hera requests anyone wanting to more than explore and take photos contact her first), they nevertheless further help bring the overall mystique of the village to life once more.
Goatswood is the story I never got around to writing, about a place that never existed, where I would have loved to have lived. It is a world full of haunted places, Gothic folk tales and shadowy occult mysteries. It is set in a time when attitudes were just beginning to change due to advances in science and technology. And yet this advance caused a counter reaction in many, who tried to revive older folk traditions and beliefs in Magic.
In the countryside most people still carried on as they had done for hundreds of years. They still retained a strong belief in natural magic, folk tales and herbal remedies, and yet they had their feet planted firmly in the reality of a hard working life on the land. A really great example of this can be seen in the recent television miniseries “The Living and the dead”.
– Hera (zee9)
Goatswood, April 2022
Now I am an acknowledged “Hera fan” and so am obviously naturally drawn to her work. However, if you have never seen one of her regions before, or if you have never had the opportunity to appreciate Goatswood, then I urge you to take the opportunity to do so now. It is one of the great classics of Second Life.
La Masion d’Aneli: Nessuno Myoo – As Mammoths In the Middle Of Butterflies
Having opened on April 6th, 2022, Kicca Igaly and Nessuno Myoo present two intriguing installations at La Maison d’Aneli (curated by Aneli Abeyante) that stand a both individual pieces and as installations that might – in the mind of the visitor – also be intertwined in terms of theme and potential interpretation.
Before getting to the exhibits – both of which can be reached from the teleport disc at the gallery’s ground-level landing point – please note that to appreciate these installations fully, yo should ensure Advanced Lighting Model (ALM) is enabled and render quality is set to High (if your system can handle it) – both set through Preferences → Graphics, and that the viewer is also set to use the Shared Environment.
La Masion d’Aneli: Kicca Igaly – Pulsions
Within Pulsions, Kicca explores the idea that the human condition – the lives we lead and how we interact – is propelled by the decisions we make individually and collectively; pulsion itself being the act of driving forward (as opposed to being drawn forward involuntarily as a result of influences over which we have no direct control).
Within the setting, we are presented by scenes of everyday life: mothers with their children sharing a conversation; children at play, a mother and daughter passing a (presumably) homeless man asleep on a park bench; a tall man watching the children at play, and so on. Over the shoulders of each character float two little figures – their better angels (or positive pulsions) and darker demons (or negative pulsions) that drive their behaviour – whether or not a group conversation descends into gossip and rumour-spreading; whether a discussion remains calm and reasoned or descends into a heated, angry exchange; whether a game played remains friendly and fun or embroiled in bitterness on losing, and so on. By using the term pulsion, Kicca reminds us that the negative choices we make may not always be driven by a need to hurt or upset and so are not necessarily “evil” or “cruel” – although the tall figure watching the two youngsters also perhaps reminds us there can be intentional evil driving the decisions some make…
La Masion d’Aneli: Kicca Igaly – Pulsions
Within As Mammoths In The Middle Of Butterflies, Nessuno presents a single, stunning sculpture of the skeletal forms of two mammoths of unequal size apparently locked in combat, the smaller forced down onto its rear hunches and attempted to ward off a blow from the foreleg of the larger as it rears up on its hind legs in order to deliver the blow with greater force. Around both rises a cloud of butterflies, their peace and innocence shattered by the warring beasts.
Quite what we make of this is left entirely open to interpretation, the artist only stating At the sunset of existence, immersed in the wonder of its own nature. Thus, how we respond to the piece is entirely subjective. For my part, the use of mammoths (now long extinct) and the term “sunset of existence” suggests the piece can – and as with Kicca’s Pulsions – be taken on a statement about the human condition.
As Mammoths In The Middle Of Butterflies
That we are, for example, so polarised in views on subjects such as global warming and so focused on arguing about it, we cannot pause to address the fact that we really are disrupting the global ecosystem and hastening our own demise. Other might see it as a commentary on the the danger of the old truism “might is right”, that some countries have grown so arrogant in their own superiority and might, they care little about the manner in which the decisions they make can have shattering and disruptive impacts on others.
But rather than add further subjective thoughts of my own here, I’ll leave it to the sculpture to express itself to you. All I’ll say in closing is that once again, Kicca and Nessuno present two installations that engage both the eye and the mind.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 