Tag: RFL 2012

RFL 2012: It’s time for a cure

Posted on by Inara Pey

With SL9B now behind us and July opening before us, Second Life moves towards the central event of the Relay For Life in SL season: the Relay weekend.

This year, the weekend will take place over the 14th and 15th of July, and will feature 36 regions of campsites and five regions set aside for events. As with previous years, the regions will feature the Relay Track, giving participants the opportunity to wall through the regions, seeing the wide diversity of campsites and builds, and donate to RFL SL.

RFL Relay Weekend: sims on-line and under development

Events are still being planned, but the broad outline of activities have been announced:

Saturday July 14th:

  • 10:00: Opening Ceremony
  • 11:00: The first lap of the Relay is a Survivor / Caregiver honour walk – please line the track and celebrate our heroes.
  • 21:00: REMEMBER – The Lunimaria Ceremony: a solemn occasion in remembrance of those and their loved one who have lost the battle against cancer or who are still battling it. The sims will be darkened. there will be readings and inspirational music. All are invited to participate and asked to walk the track in silence

Sunday July 15th: 

  • 06:00: FIGHT BACK: collect a RFL Hope Cape and Fight Back Flag and join-in pledging to save a life this year – your own, a family member, a friend or that of someone you don’t even know as yet
  • 10:00: The closing ceremony: celebrate and pay tribute to what has been accomplished and all that RFL in Second Life stands for and has achieved over the years.

To date, RFL SL has raised over $1.5 million dollars since 2004, with almost $300,000 having been raised through events already held in SL this year.

The core regions at the Relay Weekend

Related Links

RFL SL Welcome Centre 2011

Make it so, Number One: the SL SF Convention

Posted on by Inara Pey

Note this is a multi-page article, please use the page options at the very end of the piece to page bath and forth.

The fifth annual Second Life Science Fiction convention is well underway, having started on the 27th June and running through until Sunday July 1st. I’m a little late getting to it due to a number of reasons – including not receiving any PR material this year. However, given science-fiction does poke the geek in me, I hopped over to the regions ahead of the start of a busy weekend of events.

This year’s event covers six regions, and is again in aid of the American Cancer Society / RFL in SL, presenting a host of exhibits to tour showcasing SF in SL as well as running a series of live events.

The promotional poster for the event

Chief among the live events are special appearance by Jonathan Frakes (William T. and Thomas Riker from Star Trek: the Next Generation and later ST incarnations) and Garrett Wang (Harry Kim from Star Trek Voyager), both of whom will be appearing over the weekend.

Also putting in an appearance was Richard Hatch, the original Apollo from Battlestar Galactica and who also featured in the reimagined series as the manipulative revolutionary / terrorist Tom Zarek. Mr. Hatch was on stage on June 27th, just after the event opened, so I’m afraid I missed him in terms of getting the word out.

Each of the six regions has its own arrival point, each of which has a wealth of information on the events – including links to  convention guide (presented in PDF format & sadly lacking in URLs). The format of the guide will be instantly recognisable to anyone who has ever attended a Sci Fi convention in real life, which is a nice touch. However, if you are specifically interested in attending the presentations by Mr. Frakes and / or Mr. Wang, I would suggest you head for the North region’s teleport point. Details on the appearances by Mr. Frakes and Mr. Wang can be found just to the east of this, complete with a ticket booth, which links you to the SL Marketplace where you can purchase a ticket to attend either or both events, at a cost of L$100 per attending avatar.

The venue for the guest speakers is the spherical Council Chamber which sites next to the ticket booth and promotional posters of the guests. Other main stage events will take place in the ground immediately outside the sphere, on the east side of the teleport arrivals area.

The Council Chamber

The regions themselves are well-defined in terms of the ratio of open space to exhibits, helping to reduce overall lag. For those who visited SL9b, there are some familiar friends here – such as Novelli Nior’s TARDIS ride. If you didn’t get to enjoy this unlagged at SL9B, it’s immediately worth a visit here.

Journey through the Galaxy aboard a TARDIS

There is quite a mix of exhibits across the sims, with some promoting content, others role-play groups and some – like the TARDIS ride – offering a lot of fun. Some are imaginative ways of promoting adult-oriented material in a distinctly inoffensive way which should raise a smile even if you’re not into the adult theme itself…

The REAL truth about alien crop circles…
Pages: 1 2

5th annual SL Home and Garden Expo

Posted on by Inara Pey

The fifth annual Second Life Home & Garden Expo is currently underway across 16 sims showcasing the work of many of SL’s top homes & gardens creators (many of whom are also sponsoring the event), with two additional sims for entertainment and breedable pets respectively.

The event opened on May 19th and will run through until May 28th and is supporting Relay for Life SL, with the 18 sims sited directly adjacent to the American Cancer Society’s region, which visitors to the Expo are welcome to visit.

The Expo sims are laid out with a mix of home & garden parcels, all based on a grid of interlinking footpaths that make wandering the event easy and which serve as natural boundaries. RFL donation plinths are regularly spaced along the footpaths, allowing people to donate as they go. Given the sheer number of sims and exhibitors, finding things can be a handful, so I recommend you make use of the Expo guide available on the official website.

Expo map

To encourage visitors, many of the participants in the Expo are offering exclusive items which will only be available throughout the duration of the event. These range from building through to furniture to trees and plants – even clothing and aircraft are offered, making it quite an eclectic mix.

Pages: 1 2

Fantasy Faire 2012: $25K for RFL

Posted on by Inara Pey

Fantasy Faire 2012 has closed. It’s been an amazing week: 9 sims of stunning builds – eight representing the incredibly diverse nature of fantasy and role-play in Second Life.

In all, some $25,080 USD has been raised through the nine days of the Faire for Relay For Life. However you look at it, that is an amazing total, and represents the generosity of Second Life users.

For those who have yet to visit the sims, there is still time: they’ll remain open until midnight SLT on Monday 30th April – and they really are worth a tour.

For my part, I’ve had great fun exploring the sims, taking photos for the articles here and visiting the various stores. I did stupidly miss out on a couple of things in the silent auction I intended to bid for, but I’ve no-one to blame but myself for that.

To all involved in the event, organisers, support teams, sim builders, sponsors, creators, entertainers and everyone else many, many thanks for your hard work and efforts; it’s been a great event, and now looking forward to 2013!

Here are a few highlights, courtesy of SL machinimatographers:

Related Links

Images from Fantasy Faire 8: Siren’s Secret

Posted on by Inara Pey

Important Note: due to the service outage on Thursday 26th April, Fantasy Faire has been extended by one day. 

Siren’s Secret is the second build at this year’s Fantasy Faire by Elicio Ember, the other being Nu Orne. It takes us from the deep jungle to the wide sea, and a design that, like The Tides, has Atlantean echoes. But whereas The Tides is suggestive of an Atlantis of legend, Siren’s Secret takes a more alien / science-fiction turn; indeed, anyone who has seen the TV series Stargate:Atlantis may well feel a certain familiarity when looking on the style of architecture here. Again the echoes are faint, but they are there, and walking along the flood walkways I would not have been surprised if I’d come across a Stargate and DHD sitting in a corner…

Which is not to say this build isn’t in any way original; as I said, the echoes are faint. In fact, I have to admit that it is perhaps the build that draws me most strongly. This is in part because it does mix fantasy and science-fiction so well, but also because of the manner in which the build extends below, as well as above, the waves, encouraging those who visit to explore what lies beneath as well as being tempted by the creations on offer.

The sim is sponsored by Booshies, housed in an imposing store directly opposite the main teleport area, on the other side of which site the Jail and Bail cell. Around the sim, under the sweeping gaze of the crystal-powered lighthouse (which Elicio has donated to the Faire’s Silent Auction alongside the lighthouse from Nu Orne), you will find stores with a distinctly aquatic feel: Bibi’s coral reef shop, Mermaid Treasure & Boutique, Pacific Sunrise, Mer-chandise Cove and more besides.

Booshies themselves are a new range of breedable about to be launched in Second Life and are the subject of an interview with their creator, Booshie Resident, on the Fantasy Faire website. The website also carries an interview with Elicio Ember, in which he discusses both Siren’s Secret and Nu Orne.

One of the things I like about Siren’s Secret is that it naturally lends itself to being photographed at night – so I make no apologies for the number of night shots that follow…

Siren’s Secret
Teleport
Booshies
Your cell awaits: Jail and Bail
The lighthouse and sim by night
Detail above the water
…and below
Pages: 1 2

Brilliant video: the architecture of Fantasy Faire

Posted on by Inara Pey

The following is a stunning machinima from Fantasy Faire by Marx Catteneo, which magnificently capatures the architecture of the various regions of the Faire. So much so that I had to share it here.

Important Note: due to the service outage on Thursday 26th April, Fantasy Faire has been extended by one day. 

Teleports