We will rock the beach with vibes from Strangeways Radio and SOMA FM, and possibly a few homespun tunes by DJ Strannik Zipper. Deep into the night with deep house and more! Get on down to Pirates Atoll and head to Tiki Beach, Set your sun position to sunset or midnight and swing with the palm trees to deep tropical and pacific vibes.
Thirza Ember of Hypergrid Safari fame has opened a new freebie swimwear floor in the Atoll Shop on Pirate’s Atoll. She had just opened a lingerie shop on Nara’s Nook which added sizzle to the already hot realm of that romance novel themed writer’s colony.
Now nobody can show up on Pirate’s Atoll and worry about not being properly attired for Tiki Beach. At the moment, all of the creations are for lady avatars, but Thirza assured me that swimwear for men will be coming soon.
If you were there, then you already know that the OSCC for 2014 was fantastic. If you missed it, then most of the sessions are available by video recording. I am going to go back and watch the sessions I missed. There were a few technical glitches with sound, media or access (I couldn’t get into the first session), but Fleep Tuque and the team got everything ironed out quickly, and most everything went off without a hitch. There was a fantastic party at the Speakeasy on LFgrid with DJ Walter Balazic, and then the party here at the Atoll went on for more than 6 hours! We had around 50 visitors to the Atoll, and had nearly 30 all at the same time at the peak of the party.
I was afraid that being a Sunday night, not many people would want to come out, but the camaraderie of the conference was so good that people didn’t want it to end. Jaron Lanier once said that the most interesting thing in any virtual world is always another person, and when you get multiple persons all sharing goals and experiences, that is times ten!
Oh, and being a DJ is a lot of fun!
Here are some photos
OK, Now I am sounding like a concert promoter or something – enough of that! Come and unwind, compare notes on the conference or just chill and dance to the music!
Hypergrid to the New Tortuga Station and then click the telporter or one of the event posters to get to the beach!
Yes, I am foolishly taking the plunge once again (almost planning to fail gloriously) by getting ready for NaNoWriMo. As part of the torture/fun, I am hosting a number of write-ins at Caffe Pellegrino.
Kick-Off Party: October 31st 10:00PM (SLT/PST) to 2:00AM (sooner or later). Come home in your post-halloween party haze and party some more. Then at midnight, the silence falls as the icy hand of deadline touches you, and you write until your fingers bleed or until you pass out.
then…..
A write-in EVERY WEEKDAY starting at 6:00PM (SLT/PST). I didn’t say we stopped, but we start again every weekday!
Free Virtual Coffee! Free Jukebox Access, Free Carpal Tunnel Syndrome!
This is a perfect write-in for parents of busy children, shut-ins or the quarantined.
To come to the write in, hypergrid in and then use the teleporter subway to go to the Caffe.
UPDATE AFTER THE FACT: Since Nara’s Nook was also hosting NaNoWriMo write-ins, I ended up directing everybody to that location. We’ll see about next year!
You will notice on the Opensimulator Conference Schedule, that the last item on Sunday is the Tiki Beach Dream-Pop Rave at 7:00PM (SLT). I set the schedule late so as not to conflict with other events, but since there isn’t much happening after 3:30PM, I will get the party started at 4:00PM so that folks in difficult time zones can at least drop by for a while. There will be freebie gifts for attendees, and in addition to socializing on the beach, you can also discuss the conference at the Caffe or chill in the Irish Pub, or go exploring the newly opened Pirate’s Museum. Check back here for updates!
We had 19 adventurous avatars (and a straggler or two after the event) come and visit the Atoll as part of the Hypergrid Safari on October 22, 2014. You can read about it on Thirza Ember’s blog HG Safari.
There was no discernible lag, and nobody lost their hair. Hosting guru Fernando Oliveira had just created a new asset server, which definitely speeded things up. People had fun dancing to th dream-pop beat on Tiki Beach, driving water taxis and other boats, exploring the pirate museum, swimming in (or falling into) the lagoon, and getting the Pirate’s Atoll gift box o freebies.
Bot staff member Betty Receptionist was excused from her usual post on the reception desk at the John Simmons HyperText office, to dance on the beach and interact with visitors. Some of the things she came up with made folks laugh:
This sign, now in the train station in Pirate’s Atoll, is our official endorsement of a great hosting provider!
Fernando Oliveira has gone above and beyond to get things working with my many custom requests and continuously improve the hosted opensimulator experience.
After many emails and struggle sessions to get VIrwox’s OMC currency working at Pirate’s Atoll, I have given up on it. Even if I had been able to get it working properly (which I was not), the system did not inspire the confidence desired in a virtual world currency. Fernando Oliveira, our hosting guru, left no stone unturned in trying to get this to work, but at the end of the day, Virwox could not really help, and we think the problem lived somewhere in the closed black box of Virwox. Virwox is still an OK place to exchange virtual currencies, but I don’t see OMC as viable going forward. Come to think of it, at any of the grids where OMC is installed, I have never seen a successful sale of anything in OMC.
Contrast the month I spent trying to sell myself one of my own prims with OMC, with the 15-20 minutes I spent setting up a store on Kitely Market, leading to a sale about an hour later. If I put a URL loader in an in-world prim for sale, then clicking the prim goes right to the sale page. Easier to set-up, use and buy with, and it is hypergrid friendly. The only problem is that Kitely currency cannot be cashed out, and forcing people to use Paypal, also subjects them to a fee. It isn’t bad, and I will keep a Kitely store, but it isn’t a total solution.
The Hypergrid Safari is coming to Pirate’s Atoll on Wednesday, October 22, 2014. This is the group that explores strange new worlds and boldly goes where few avatars have gone before.
This adventurer’s club meets at their clubhouse on the outlands region of Metropolis, and then explores a list of hypergrided worlds on their list. You can read more about them and how to connect in this article.
Join the Safari at the clubhouse at 12:00PM (PST) or come to the islands to greet them when they arrive.
