The Gazette

Travel

Second Life is an Adult!

06/16/2021

It's hard to believe but SL is 18. Our very own little (actually, not so little) virtual world has finally reached adulthood!

The 18th annual Second Life birthday celebrations (SL18B) begin tomorrow, June 17th, and continue until July 1st. There will be opportunities to shop until your avi drops. There will be live music, performances and many exciting exhibits.

One of those exhibits will be that of the Bellisserian Bureau of Bureaucracy. We'll be showing the premiere of our new movie and revealing exciting new plans for the future.

The BBB officials on the stand will carry their own SSID's – Staff Stamp Issuing Devices. Be nice to us and we will perform a personal passport control for you on request – a service only available on the BBB stand.

The picture above shows our Editor Fenella holding her SSID. Below is a picture of the stamp she will be issuing; signed in her own handwriting and featuring an ink-well and pen to symbolise her role at the BBB.

There are ten staff stamps to collect in total so be sure to stop by and say hello to as many of us as you can. Check the sidebar for the staff directory so you know who we are. Of course there's also the SL18B stamp itself to collect – see below for details of that.

This year’s theme for SL18B is Hidden Worlds. In truth Second Life® contains many worlds. There are role-playing regions set far in the past or future. There are sci-fi regions, fantasy regions teeming with magical folk and creatures. Until Fenella became a mermaid herself, for example, she'd been in SL for 14 years without ever visiting the many beautiful undersea builds. In some cases, she'd sailed right over them, without knowing they were there!

Our passports encourage residents to venture to places they might not otherwise find. Some may only stop to pick up the stamp and that's fine as long as they're having fun, but we hope they'll often stick around and explore.

Our passport stamp locations aren't hidden worlds exactly, but they're not usually as prominent as the places merchants and event organisers work so hard to promote.

Our terminals are only at non-commercial locations. They're not used to advertise goods, services or land rentals. We issue the passports, licence plates and driving licences for free. We design the stamps, make the terminals and our other equipment for free. We organise rallies and tours to stamp-issuing locations for free. All our staff are volunteers.

Don't get us wrong. We love to SL shop as much as the next avi and there's nothing at all wrong with commerce. It's just not what we are about. We are very much in SL's tradition of content generated by enthusiastic amateur users.

Collecting stamps for your Bellisseria Passport (and soon perhaps other passports as our systems and scripts can now be licensed for use elsewhere in SL) will take you to builds lovingly-made by your fellow-residents. We hope it helps you get to know our now all-grown-up virtual world even better.

Happy exploring and see you on the stand at SL18B!

Our only new stamp location this week – not live until the big event opens tomorrow, when the SLURL below will work – is the terminal for the special commemorative SL18B stamp itself. Enjoy the event!

SL18B

Posted by Fenella at 08:00 AM in Second Life, Travel | Permalink | Comments (4)

Rally report and New Locations

05/29/2021

Almost 200 people took part on the day of our joint rally with the Drivers of SL. The HUD remains available and people are continuing to do the course, but it was fun to be part of a group. After a false start in her Ferrari 599, our editor, Fenella, decided to experience at least part of the rally as a newbie might, using the golf cart provided for anyone who didn't have a vehicle of their own. That was quite a relaxed drive, shall we say, and she was more overtaken than she's used to.

She did eventually make it to Lower Barensmouth where she rezzed her Boss Bandit classic-style wooden motor launch to get to the Pugwash rail rez zone. As far as SL railways are concerned, she is a newbie and had no locomotives in inventory. She used the train provided to travel to Campwich. Her lack of railway experience cost dearly on arrival there as she failed to calculate the braking distance of her loco and managed to flatten her dear colleague Zoe. No long term harm was done but grudges are being held. It may take a little while yet for Zoe once more to view her as a colleague should!

From Campwich, the rally took again to the water and, looking to put some safe distance between herself and Zoe's wrath, Fenella once more rezzed her fast motor launch, which allowed her to progress both in style and at speed. She was lagging behind the pack by this stage because stops for photography were slowing her down.

She'd already picked up all but one of the stamps when she first joined the BBB as a route-tester for the original BBB Rally but used the special hud for non-passport holders to collect them all again! From the Panamole Canal she rode her horse to Millbank and on to Millers Pond, using the motor boat again to head on under the low bridges and out to sea.

Picking up her penultimate stamp at the Bellisseria Fairgounds, she rezzed her Bandit 170 for the final leg to Mermaids Grotto where, transformed into a mermaid and mission completed, the amazing DSL HUD teleported her – tailed, scaled and dripping on the carpets – back to the BBB offices and a severe shunning from Zoe.

A succession of happy travelers came by and much positive feedback was gratefully received. We are delighted that so many of our BBBug members enjoyed the drive and suspect that many will now join Drivers of SL. The official thanks of all at the BBB go out to Christi and Xarabethe of DSL. They have been doing this a long time and are so practised and accomplished that they make the feats of organisation involved seem easy. We are now well aware that they are not! The Drivers of SL HUD is really a marvel – both efficient and (thanks to Xarabethe's carefully-researched commentary on places en route) entertaining and informative.