Tag: Exploring Second Life 2024

In August, I wrote about New Deer Isle and the touch of America’s New England that Kaiden Glocke Tray (KaidenTray) had brought to Second Norway (see: Second Norway’s touch of New England in Second Life). Kaiden is a gifted Second Life landscaper and his work can be seen across the grid places large and small, some of which I’ve also covered in these pages over the years.

For Halloween 2024, Kaiden presents Witchcraft & Voodoo in New Orleans: The End, a region-wide build presented on a Full private region leveraging the Land Capacity bonus. It’s a setting with a lot packed into it, both in terms of what to see and what is happening there throughout the month of October.

Welcome to the most haunted and realistic location of New Orleans. It is a post-apocalyptic and dystopian environment, which was left bare after the flooding of Hurricane Katrina, There is an abandoned but interactive theme park with rides that still work, but ride them at your own risk! Release your competitive side with bumper cars, become lost in the mystical swamp, challenge your courage in the haunted house, create some amazing memories with photos, or get a real life reading from tarot readers!

– Witchcraft & Voodoo in New Orleans: greeter message

Unless you are there simply to pose for very specific photos of yourself, this is a place best experienced as it is designed to be seen – using the Shared Environment (World → Environment → Use Shared Environment). As there is a lot in the region that is going to keep the viewer business, I’d suggest that having Shadows enabled is not vital to the overall experience, and some might find they will need to adjust draw distance if they have it to the upper end of the scale. Do make sure that if you’re running a pre-PBR viewer, that you have enabled Advanced Lighting Model (ALM: Preferences → Graphics make sure the appropriate check box is ticked, but not you do not also need to enable shadows), and enable local sounds if you have them off.

So, with all that said, and in the words spoken by Benedict Cummerbatch, “Now, shall we begin?”†

The Landing Point sits towards the western side of the region, along the main street of a Section of New Orleans as it runs north-to-south cross the region, and which is in places flooded (with the tide being held at bay at one end by a wall thrown across the road). The town forms the greater part of the setting, and at its southern end, merges into swamplands crossed by wooden board walks, the waters around them heavy with crocodiles. Among the mangroves and the cabins scattered around are various ritualistic goings on, whilst on the far side of the swamp, what appears to have been an outburst of murderous mayhem has struck the little village there.

Both the bayou/ wetlands and the town also connect with the abandoned theme park as it occupies the north-east portion of the region. Partially flooded, this is fast turning into a wilding of a place – although the rides are still working (if some of them manned by ghoulish characters!), so be ready to try them out. The Landing Point is not enforced, so it is possible to hop around, but explorations on foot are really the only way to go lest you risk missing out on some of the frights.

When arriving at the main Landing Point, a greeter will provide an invite to the local Group, and information on both tours and a special show being staged in the region. Visitors are also offered a flashlight, and ADDing it helps with explorations.

Exactly which path you choose to take when exploring is entirely up to you, and I do not want to give too much away here and possibly spoil things. I will say that the theatre for the stage production is neatly tucked away (if apparently still under construction at the time of my visit, going by the raw prims), so it can sit within the setting without interrupting the overall flow of exploration or seeming to break with the overall region design.

Not all of the buildings have interiors, but those that do should be entered and appreciated / explored. Surprises may await and objects may require touching. I particularly liked the Black Cat Inn offers a cosy and relatively spooky-free place in which to relax. I will admit to being a little confused by the reference to a haunted house; not sure if I simply missed it (or maybe a teleport to it…) due to a case of the Stupids on my part, or whether you have to join one of the tours in order to visit it.

The performances I referred to above feature Theatre 6 in The Witches of New Orleans, with shows at 12:00 noon SLT on Sunday, October 13th, 2024 and 13:00 SLT on Saturday, October 26th, 2024. Dates and times of tours, meanwhile, are per the poster, above right.

I’m not a great fan of Halloween as we treat it in modern times – haunted houses, trick-or-treating as it is now, etc., – although the tapestry of Gaelic influences and the link to Gothic fiction which are tied to Halloween are a different matter. As such, I tend to be a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to the plethora of Halloween themed events and regions and so on which pop-up between late September and early October in Second Life.

However, there are exceptions to this – and Witchcraft & Voodoo in New Orleans: The End is one of them. The region is well-crafted, and explorations offer surprises and things to poke at or ride or enjoy. It offers fun and engagement over simply trying to shock or excite, offering plenty of opportunities for photography as well as offering something just that little bit different by way of events within its boundaries (and some nice (and occasionally lewd!) touches of humour present in some of the signs around the place). So why not head over an have a look?

SLurl Details

• Witchcraft & Voodoo in New Orleans: The End (Wandering New York, rated Moderate)

† Yes, I know, another obscure film reference, and one not really connected to the subject of the piece. Kudos to those who get it, however.

Lam Erin’s Cherishville is a place that changes with the seasons, sometimes shifting location in the process; it’s also a place I do attempt to visit annually in order to catch one of its annual looks. The last time I did so was in winter (see Cherishville’s winter 2023 in Second Life) and I had intended to drop in during the summer during 2024; sadly, that didn’t happen for assorted reasons, so once again it is autumn that brought me back to the setting, and probably not too far ahead of winter once more taking over.

While the setting has at times dipped a toe into more tropical settings, for most of the iterations I’ve covered in these pages it has presented a look and feel of a location somewhere within the North American continent, and the same is true with this iteration. This is not to say they each look in any way similar as the seasons pass; each setting very much has its own unique look and feel. Rather, the general design and flora used within each of Cherishville’s iterations offers as a sense of loose theme for the settings presented, as if they are different locations along a journey.

For Autumn 2024, there is also a further dimension to this idea of journeying: that of travelling through time. With a couple of exceptions, the road vehicles occupying the setting suggest the 1930s and 1940s (and even the exceptions suggest a not-too-distant leap from there to the 1950s). While there is nothing implicit to suggest the setting is intended to be from those decades – the buildings sandwiched between the north-side main road and the railway track paralleling it could be from almost any period of the last century and a half (or more) -,  the vehicles help to offer a sense of period to the setting.

But that said, there are anomalies to this feeling: the traffic lights serving the pedestrian crossings along the road seem to come from much later that the 1940s; whilst in terms of location, there are touches here and there that are perhaps more European in nature, such as a British telephone box and French-style advertising kiosk. Whilst these might be slightly anachronistic given the North American vibe noted above, they nevertheless work and remind us that SL can be anywhere we chose it to be.

It is on the north side of the setting mentioned above that the designated (but unenforced) Landing Point has been set. It sits at the western extent of the road, which points towards the steeple of the local church sitting at its far end. A bridge with the promise of a botanic garden on its other side forms the local ending to the road, but the sign’s promise is false: across its pan is just a small spit of land. Street lamps along the road huddle under the boughs of tree from which the wind is pulling brown and gold leaves whilst the rain covers the cobble road’s surface in a patina of ripple-spreading splashes.

Set back from the road and behind the protection of a wrought iron fence, the miscellaneous houses and cottages seem to offer various retreats from the tumbling rain, both indoors and under the false shelter of a pergola, although it is perhaps the bakery-café alongside the railway platform which offers the warmest and cosiest welcome. Trains and tracks tend to be another motif in Lam’s build, and the presence of the track as it sits over the large, flagstone-paved expanse  behind the houses gives the setting a further link to past iterations of Cherishville.

The train rail are further paralleled by a broad body of water entering the setting from its eastern end, where it passes under a low-slung bridge to flow through the landscape before making a right turn through boulders and shallows, making a turn to the north. Here it slips under the railway bridge and that of the one promising a walk through the botanic park, and from there exiting the region once.

South of the water and road bridge, the countryside of the setting becomes more rural and perhaps a little more mysterious. An old armchair sits out on the road just beyond the bridge, potentially hampering traffic whilst also maybe directing attention to the roofed cart with its lights and hay bails as possibly offering a slightly drier place for people to sit. Tall ranks of corn on the cob plants stand on parade to one side of the road here, apparently called to order by the slightly spooky scarecrow standing in their midst, his arms perches for local ravens.

The local road sign here is not encouraging, offering directions to the likes of the Bates Motel, Amityville, Elm St., and Sleepy Hollow amongst other destinations; however it is in keeping with the time of year, so might have been raised by some local wag as a Halloween joke, particularly given the nature of the little barn sitting at the end of the track the road sign guards.

Another barn stands atop a low hill on the southern extent of the land, but this one appears to be far more for the purposes of farming. Certainly, the guard duty here has been taken over by rows of innocently-faced sunflowers, leaving the grasping fingers of the corn behind. The sunflowers are also marshalled by far less creepy scarecrow as the road loops past to make its way back to where it is crossed by the railway line, the bridge of which offering a way back to town.

Caught under a leaden sky heavy with cloud and in keeping with the downpour, Cherishville offers numerous places to sit and – as one would expect – multiple opportunities for photography. I wasn’t too convinced by the little ball of a full Moon lurking at tree-top height and looking as if it might be looking for a place to land between the region’s eastern side and the outlying region surround – but a quick click with object derender meant it was no longer a distraction. Outside of this, meandering and camming through Cherishville came with its usual pleasure, and it was interesting to see someone else putting what appears to be Alex Bader’s PBR terrain materials to good use (as I’ve done on my home island).

SLurl Details

• Cherishvile Autumn 2024 (Tuscan Hills, rated Moderate)

September 13th, 2024 marked the anniversary of a momentous and crippling event in Earth’s history. It was on that day that a nuclear waste disposal site on the far side of the Moon reached critical mass, causing a thermonuclear detonation of immeasurable force, shattering the Moon and hurling it from Earth’s orbit and into the depths of space, carrying with it the 311 surviving souls on Moonbase Alpha.

Passing beyond the range of their fleet of Eagle Transporters and making a full-scale evacuation evacuation, and with Earth unable to mount a rescue mission, the people of Moonbase Alpha could only signal their survival as they departed, never to be heard from again. 

– Extract from Pey’s Encyclopaedia of Space Exploration (2024 edition)

Of course, nothing like the above ever happened – but in 1974, the premise of the Moon being flung into interstellar space as a result of a massive chain reaction of thermonuclear events (and aided by the odd wormhole or two, amongst other things), carrying the 311 people trapped on Moonbase Alpha with it, lay at the heart of the Anglo-American television series Space: 1999.

I didn’t personally catch-up with Space:1999 until the 1990s, and while it struck me as perhaps and little too focused on the Alien of Week type of threat, providing disbelief was sufficiently suspended, it could be a fun watch – and it cannot be denied that considerable work went into making Moonbase Alpha a believable place and the Eagle Transporter perhaps one of the most well-conceived and “real world” space vehicle designs to be featured on television as coming from a near-future period in our development of spaceflight technology.

While the series was cancelled after just two seasons, the show lived on  – as with many sci-fi series – in the world of fandom, where continues to enjoy much support and popularity. This support and interest continues into Second Life,  where fans and role-players can take up a active role in operations within Moonbase Alpha, thanks to Mitch Charron. His Space: 1999 – Moonbase Alpha is an impressive representation of significant parts of Moonbase Alpha as seen in the first season of the series, bringing together familiar and iconic elementsfrom the show, including the commander’s desk, the comm-posts standing along the corridors, the station’s surface buggies and – of course – the Eagle Transporter.

Welcome to Moonbase Alpha! Inspired by the Space: 1999 70s SciFi TV series, MBA is an-going project of themed roleplay of space exploration and alien encounters, set a few years before Breakaway (and working our way there and beyond :). The Moonbase is still under construction, evolving and expanding but fully operational. We create multi-session ‘episodes’ which we play out over a period of time. While Alpha is our home base, our scenarios often involve multiple sims developed by members depending on the needs of our episodes.   

– From the information notecard available at any of the station’s comm posts.

And when I say impressive, I mean exactly that; it is clear that considerable effort has be put into the interior design, faithfully reproducing the aesthetics of the original sets and interiors and their signage / iconography. As well as Main Mission and the commanding officer’s expansive office space (complete with the large sliding doors to separate it from the bustle of Main Mission for conferences and the like), the interiors include a part of Doctor Helena Russell’s medical centre, a portion of the science facilities (one lab of which appears to be for Professor Victor Bergman), the station’s solarium and nuclear generation plant (both, I believe, seen in the episode Force of Life), a section of the travel tube network, and a series of corridors connecting all of these elements together and linking them to crew accommodation and recreation facilities.

Explorations of the facility start at a Landing Point neatly situated within the passenger pod of an Eagle Transporter. From here, the starboard doors from the pod (when facing towards the flight deck) open into a travel tube car, and its opening is accompanied by the initial fanfare of the show’s original (and best, I think) theme tune for those with local sounds enabled – and in this regard, having them enabled is recommended, as many of the sounds from the series can be heard throughout the facility, adding further depth.

Two exits are available from the travel tube car. One leads to the nuclear generating facility mentioned above, and the lifeblood of Alpha (just beware the warning beams!) or exit into Alpha itself via a security station and passing the airlock (surface EVA possible through the latter). Following the corridors from her will take visitors past all of the major facilities and to the elevator up to Main Mission. Here it is quite easy to imagine Paul Morrow overseeing operations with Sandra Benes dependably at his side, and perhaps Victor Bergman caught in a technical discussion with David Kano.

As noted in the introductory notecard, RP in the setting is intended to be relaxed and fun, with the station also forming a hang-out for those involved. In addition to Alpha, the setting currently also includes a part of the nuclear waste facilities and their monitoring station. During my visit, Mitch informed me he’s working on other elements such as the space station where the Ultra Probe has been constructed prior to the events of the series (and seen in flashbacks during Dragon’s Domain – an episode which utilised Tomaso Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor so movingly and emotively to help drive the story, making it for me the best of Space: 1999).

Those wishing to join with the role-play are encouraged to read the introductory notecard for information on the likes of Alpha uniform sleeve colour, in-world availability of uniforms and Alpha spacesuits, etc.

With some gentle touches of humour mindful of how set builders oft utilised off-the-shelf items to dress sets (Commodore, anyone?), Space 1999 – Moonbase Alpha is an engaging build for visitors and RPers alike.

Slurl Details

• Space 1999 – Moonbase Alpha (Heaven Seven, rated Moderate)