Endless Nights, Lessons Learned - Part 2

I always have to learn things the hard way.

Endless Nights is/was a beautiful build - a great idea - and was staffed with good folks. It had a chance at first.

Then the idiocy started.

I was approached by an old friend of mine from Dark City (the original - not Equator, or Obsidian City, where lag rules supreme, but the Dark City sim) about renting/buying a sim and setting it up for roleplay. He was all enthused about it, and told me he could come up with the initial money. Well, that fell through, so we shelved the idea.

Then he and another person approached me about trying again. At the same time, I was talking to another friend with an empty sim who wasn't going to be using it for awhile...and Noelyci Ingmann, another friend, was wanting to design a low-lag, low-prim sim using some of his incredible builds - everything just came together for the first time. One of the idea people was to run the sim, and the other was to help out as time permitted, and to help cover tier. I made it clear up front that my time this fall was going to be very very limited; my real life has been crazy, and will stay that way for awhile. I just don't have the time to spend in SL right now, and I tried to be very clear about that.

The build took about six weeks, and was truly amazing. I think it's one of the coolest RP sims I've ever been on. There was almost NO lag, too! The framerate on it was incredible, I usually stayed around 60fps. To give some idea, I averaged around 15fps in Obsidian City, and still do.

When we opened, we had an amazing amount of people stop by. Some tried to RP - and it just didn't work. Why? The majority of the people that seemed to want to be in Endless Nights wanted to stand around and shoot gestures, or just do combat with no roleplay - in short, there was almost NO real roleplay. The weekly tournaments were a good idea, but so poorly run that many of the people who participated only did so for a week. Staff just can't leave people standing around twiddling their thumbs for fifteen or thirty minutes while you figure out what to do. So the tournaments died a slow and painful death. The silliness Ricard introduced with his juvenile antics really just highlighted the real problem in the sim.

And to top that off, there was, after a couple of weeks, only one sim-wide roleplay storyline implemented, and that happened almost by accident. Why was that? To be honest, I'm still not sure. We had a couple of staff meetings where people were practically threatened to stay in the sim, and then nothing happened. It was disheartening.

Most of the staff were old friends of mine, and several of them told me essentially the same thing. The level of RP established from the beginning of Endless Nights was just silly - it was the same ol' thing we see in other laggy RP sims. Everyone is the ultimate - the ultimate vampire, the ultimate lycan, the ultimate demon, the ultimate bitch - and egos reign supreme. It seems the most popular thing to do in RP sims in SL is to find someone to do, or to collar. Just watching the parade of profile wars was incredible. It's still happening - apparently that's the drama du jour, and not having an SL partner makes you a loser. Must all RP be sexual? I don't think it has to be - there has to be more imagination than *that* in SL.

The art of RP is a fragile thing. You know something is sadly wrong when you are in a nice RP, change into a dragon, get people involved - and someone says, OOCly, "I won't RP with Neit - she doesn't like us vampires."

Excuse me - but who DOES like vampires, other than other vampires? Isn't the idea of RP to play a role? Yet it seems that a number of people in Endless Nights could not distinguish roleplay from personal interaction - and drama was born. Drama after drama after drama...just like the other RP sims I'd tried to play in recently. It was just OC silliness all over again.

Then it hit me. You cannot have an RP sim if you just bring in the same people, who bring the same habits and gestures and drama, no matter what the build or who the staff is. The mindset of this clique that moves from sim to sim - usually after being banned or at least cast out - isn't going to change. And worst of all, they run out the real RPers.

If I had the time or energy, I really think I could have made the sim work. We certainly got the traffic initially. There is a need for a sim like Endless Nights in SL, if the right people get together and make it work. I look back and wonder if I could have changed things if I'd been more active at first in the sim management - but it really doesn't matter now. I've learned my lesson.

It was worth the money and the time and effort. I learned a lot about people, and about myself. I won't make this mistake again. (I'll make other, bigger, more dramatic, mistakes instead.) I'll leave RP sim running up to people who can be here a lot more than me, and can stomach the drama and egos that seem to never go away.

I can't say I wasn't warned - Ethan tried to tell me, long ago, what this turns into, but I didn't listen. He gets to chuckle, he's earned his scars. Maybe he's right, and the only good RP in SL really is in Gor. It's a shame I'll never find out.

Thanks to everyone - sincerely - for the effort you put into Endless Nights. I made some good friends, and got to play with some old ones. We had some great times. Now it's time for Endless Nights to join City of Dreams, and Dark City, up in that great sim burial ground in the sky.

I always have to learn things the hard way. :)

Endless Nights - Lessons Learned, Part 1

It's never easy to realise that someone you thought you knew isn't who (or what) you think they are. Since opening Endless Nights, the hardest thing I've had to swallow to date is that someone I thought I could trust could blatantly cheat, for no good reason that I can see.

When we first opened the sim, an old friend - Ricard Collas - agreed to put out a memorial to his partner, who died this spring. It's a lovely memorial, and we put it in the center of the sim, next to Inspiration Point. It was a glorious tribute to Chippy Boa.

Ricard also asked about getting another castle put in for his beloved Toreadors, so I had that done as well. A custom castle, quite striking, was put in the northwest corner for him and his friends. He promised to help me get the sim up and running, and I was grateful for that. He was in the sim a lot, and participated in all the events he could. I was pushing to get him on staff, also, because he was such a huge participant in the sim.

The tournaments we sponsor - on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons - have been a favourite in the sim. Ricard was often a contender, if not the winner, of the Saturday tournaments. In fact, he requested we do something at a time when Europeans can participate, so in a way the Saturday tournament was partially his idea.

Now...I'd had several people tell me something was odd about fighting Ricard, that he just couldn't be taken down. I talked to him about it, and was repeatedly assured that he would never cheat. He's an excellent fighter - so why should he? I asked him about some things, and he started obsessing on being 'stalked' by the staff. The whole issue of cheating was discussed so much (and not just with Ricard) that I wrote procedures for running the tournament. One person is responsible to check all attachments on constestants - it's the only thing they should be doing.

A few weeks ago, I could not be at the Saturday tournament. When I came inworld, the first thing I see is an announcement stating that Ricard had been caught cheating, red-handed. Sure enough, the picture taken showed an attachment in his hand, the "inspect" screen showing what it was, and the edit box showing the DCS enhancement script in it. There was just no question - Ricard was cheating.

Confronted with absolute proof that he had been cheating, I asked him why the next day. I expected him to tell me it was an accident - that he forgot he was wearing this, or something of that ilk. His answer absolutely shocked me.

"I did it to prove a point. The staff is stalking me."

Ricard knew I had written procedures, and knew everyone was inspected. There was only one thing to do at that point. I wrote an apology to everyone in staff for not listening to them, and banned Ricard from the tournament.

I was asked to return all of Ricard's prims, and did so. I was sad to see Chippy's memorial go, but under the circumstances, I think Chippy would have been ashamed and would have understood.

I don't walk away from friendships easily. This one - there was no other choice. Ricard's actions epitomise the reason so many talented people in SL walk away from roleplay. I am not saddened that I lost a friend, because I never had one - but I am saddened that I was so completely taken by someone this dishonest and worthless.

Ricard - I really hope that point you wanted to make was worth it.

Endless Nights - we're OPEN!

Endless Nights - our Role Play (RP) sim - opened this last Friday, and it has been a blast! Here's a synopsis of the sim. Please come and check it out for yourself!

When Illy, Stevo and I first talked about creating an RP sim, we did some looking at builds, different sims, and stuff found in SL. I showed them both the IDG Designs island - Noelyci is a very good friend of mine, and a fantastic builder - and they both fell in love with his builds, like I did. (I literally fell in love with his observatory - one of the most amazing builds on SL, and certainly nothing like a prefab - and mine lives on Dragonhenge, my open space sim where my home is.)

We looked at the Dark Rayne castle, the arena, and especially Inspiration Point, and all agreed we HAD to have them on the sim. After talking to Noelyci for a long time, he and I worked out the details of him building the entire sim - Endless Nights, which opened last Friday. He was excited to try his hand at building a very low-prim sim as a showpiece for his prefab buildings, with some customs mixed in.

What he's created is an amazing sim full of surprises. He took his prefab buildings and did some modifications - some minor, some major - and finished the entire build in just over 3000 prims. The whole sim (minus furnishings and some landscaping) could fit on an open space sim!

Inspiration Point sits at the center of Endless Nights, looking down on the City. The arena has turned into a focal point, with duals and spars being fought there regularly, and tournaments hosted in it. One version of Dark Rayne has been converted into a hospital, with the time rift that created the constant darkness splitting the building in half. On one side of it, there are medieval cottages and a tower castle that's been taken over by a Toreador clan. On the other side are modern townhouses, with a Roadhouse bar and a town square. The Police Department and courthouse are on one side of the square, with a barn-like lair (a customisation of Noelyci's barn prefab) for supernaturals in the corner. On the opposite corner, close to the arena, is a delapidated castle that has been claimed by a lycan pack. Walking up for the stairs is exciting, since it's open most of the way up - there's even broken glass on the floor!

Beside and behind the courthouse is our weapons vendor area. Noelyci had the brilliant idea of making this area a sorta back-alley area, where shady deals took place RP-ly. Jet Control has even put out a backalley dealer in the area, offering a DCS-enhanced katana. It's a cross between a middle eastern arms dealer compound and Diagon Alley - truly a unique place! Other vendors, not weapons-related but that are RP-related, are found in a skybox above the ground to reduce lag.

But the best build of all is a unique castle, currently claimed by the Brujah, that features a room that is suspended by huge chains between four towers. This one has to be seen to be appreciated. Noelyci wanted to create something unusual but still with the feel of vampires - and he's done it in spades.

On top of all THIS - there are teleports to Heaven and Hell, from the church and graveyard, respectively. Both are breathtaking! There's also an underground mutant lair, complete with goo dripping from the broken pipes in the ceiling, a dead chicken, rats running around, and eyes peeking at you from behind a grate. You can only get there if you find the grate to it somewhere around the courthouse.

On top of only taking 3000 prims to build all of this, the lag is amazingly low - even with a tournament in progress. I've seldom seen the script performance on the sim go over 50K, and it usually stays between 10K and 15K, with a number of avatars on it. Now THIS is what most RP sims are lacking - or rather, have too much of.

I love the build for this sim. I could not ask for anything better. Noelyci has used "up" in a way I've not seen done in any other sim of this type, and made good use of good ol' terrain, rather than sidewalks and roads and such. It's a great place to have natural disasters, vampire skirmishes, and just plain old fun.

We've had a blast our first week of opening. If you are curious, just teleport to Endless Nights - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Endless%20Nights/151/19/48 - just watch out for some strange characters!

There's something about the ocean...

The smell, the sound, the energy...the ocean is my happy place. It restores something deep within me, in a way that nothing else can. Just walking on the shore lets me breath deeper, and relaxes my soul. My spirit lightens. It's been too long.

The ocean brings back memories. The last time I was on a shore was just over two years ago, and I was in such a different place. I had just finished my first year as a full-time graduate student and my life felt like it was on track. I had made some very dear friends in SL, one in particular - I was so happy. So much has happened.

Since then, I've moved across the country to take a challenging job that I really enjoy. I've kept almost all those friendships...all but one have deepened into lifelong special relationships. I've made many other close friends in SL (and RL), and some of those will also last a lifetime. I have SL to thank for many things.

The one friendship that has ended - the one that gave me such joy when I was last at the ocean - saddens me. I've had to accept that I cannot continue to enable someone's darkness, and the only way to stop it is to walk away completely. After many words, and many more tears, I have let myself be used for the last time. My friendship and acceptance weren't enough; I have no idea what would have been. I thought that after I met him and his wife in real life that our friendship could grow, as just that: Friendship. Regardless, an important part of my life is overwith now. I am saddened that my words of encouragement - even to recommend meeting someone from SL in real life - weren't accepted for what they were. I wish the both of them, him and his now real-life lover, all the happiness they deserve. I will miss you. I hope you finally find that which you have sought for so long, and wish I could have stayed on that journey with you.

The ocean was cathartic in its own ironic way, as well. By a total coincidence, I was introduced to someone that reminds me in so many ways of one of the most important people in my life. They are both Englishmen, both are from near Manchester, and look as if they could be brothers...yet they have no connection. The person I met this week was here with his family visiting a friend of mine from SL. I think that this coincidence may finally give me some closure I've needed with this relationship from long ago, that changed me in a very fundamental way.

The two people mentioned above - both touched my life deeply and both left scars, but also wisdom. Trust is something that is hard won, and easily lost. I have known this at a very deep level for a long time. What I tend to forget is that it's a two-way street. When my trust is betrayed, it doesn't mean I should trust less...rather, I should trust more carefully. I think the current scars will heal much faster, in a healthy way this time.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. My teacher walked with me on the shore...held my hand in its own way when I needed it...and helped my heart heal on many levels. The ocean was my teacher this week. It reminded me of what is important, and what is not. It was time to let go of some things, and it showed me how. The ocean let me see, once again, what is my problem, and what is NMP - not my problem.

I don't know if words exist to explain how this happens with me...words seldom fail me. Yet with the ocean, they are completely inadequate. Some things just are.

The ocean heals me, and fills me with something I never know I've lost. It has once again let me take out the things whirling in my head, examine them closely, and only put back the ones I want to keep.

There's something about the ocean...

Dragonhenge LIVES!

I am still amazed in Second Life when I teleport home and land on Dragonhenge, my own sim. I really wanted the name changed when I rented my own openspace sim, even though Dragonhenge is part of the dAlliez estates. I've lived now for over a year in the estates and Alliez is a wonderful landlord. She's quite tolerant of me, and really helped me get settled on the island. :)

Dragonhenge came as a ready-made caldera sim, sorta. The caldera part is only about 75% complete, and it is smoother than what you expect - you can walk on the ridge easily. In the middle, the caldera ridge comes down on both sides to ground level, so you can walk through the ridge, if that makes any sense. You kinda have to see it. (And you can - Dragonhenge is in Search, although I do have a security orb at my home to prevent things, like the large ant that came and crawled on top of me one day, from invading.)

My beach house, built by Roundog Tonic over two years ago, is on the only large level area of Dragonhenge, which is at the mouth of the caldera. As you walk outside, you see a terrain path through the canal that goes through the center of the caldera. The path leads to a circular area in the middle of the caldera, which has an enormous treehouse in it.

My observatory, the Codex Observatory, built by Noelyci Ingmann (of Ingmann Designs) sits on one side of the caldera ridge. Behind it, for now, is a second ridge, thin and jagged intentionally, at the edge of the island. I left water running through the area between the caldera ridge and this second ridge. This is where I hope someday Wyrm Delve (my enormous dragon cavern, built by Maximx Sansome originally on the Hostel sim, before the sim got silly) will live again. Right now it looks a bit odd, but I did want to try my hand at terraforming.

Dragonhenge is still a work in progress. I need to add some landscaping, and perhaps some furnishings in the treehouse. But I love the look - it is so peaceful. This is the third or fourth place I've put my beach house down...I just love it. Roundog totally captured what I wanted.

I love my island. I hope to have many more Ode butterfly hunts on it. :) Come look at it anytime!

Endless Nights - here we must remain

It was a dark and stormy night....

And the nights go on forever. No matter how long we wait, the sun never arises here in this place. The forest is always in shadow, the fortress continuously glowers at the moon, and IT is always out there waiting...plotting...looking for weakness.

Only the strong can transcend the black cloud that enshrouds our world; only the faithful can create the rituals that must be completed to free our souls; only the pure of heart can stand up to the blackness that seeks to destroy all.

Are you one of those that can stand up to IT? Or has IT already darkened your heart, pushing you further and further into the darkness? Are you predator - or prey?

We seek refuge together in our inspiration point, and seek sanctuary constantly from that which infuses our souls with dread. Yet here we must remain, until IT is conquered....here, in this Endless Night.

Can YOU Bring Back the Light?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yes, it's true - we're setting up an RP sim! This one is going to be different than any I've visited in SL, though. Our primary goal is as low-lag as is humanly (or dragonly) possible. To that end, Noelyci Ingmann, a close friend and owner of Ingmann Design Group, is doing then entire sim build. He has captured the time rift we want in the sim, and is taking some of his amazingly low-prim prefab buildings and tweaking them in such cool ways. He's also doing some custom builds for us - this will be, besides a great RP sim, a showcase of his works.

So far, we have almost all the builds in place - not the furnishings, or the details, of course, but the BIG stuff. And we're barely over 3000 prims! The only way I've gotten the sim script performance over 15K-ish is by firing weapons, or loading my DCS meter. :) Now, I know it will be higher than that when we have more avatars floating around, but for a baseline, it's as good as I could dream for.

To date, we have a mutant cave, a supernatural commune-style outpost, one of the most beautiful churches in SL for our angels with a path to Heaven, a portal to Hell, castles (of course!), an arena that will be used for tournaments and such, the courthouse with parking garage, an OOC roadhouse from a different time, townhouses, cottages....I'm just amazed at what is out on the sim for so little primmage.

Then we have the hospital - the sight of the rift that keeps us in Endless Nights. You can tell something very bad happened there - the vibes are all wrong, and the glow is...disturbing. Heaven and Hell can be located if you look closely enough - and I've never seen anything quite like these places. (Hint: Look for portals.)

The sim is currently locked down for building, but if you are interested in a guided tour, IM me or Illyana Menges or Stevo Arkin (or Noelyci, but spare him, he's working his cute a** off nowadays on it!). I love to show off just the bare-bones sim.

If you want to sell your stuff there, and it's RP-related, talk to me or Illy. We plan to have only weapons vendors on the ground, behind the courthouse in a Diagonally-type area, and a place in the sky for other RP-related things like clothes, accessories, and just stuff. If lag goes up - vendors will be the first to go.

What kind of RP is on Endless Nights? That will be for the citizens to decide...sorta. :) We already have a few surprises planned. There will be magic...dragons, on occasion...combat...DCS monsters (but NOT the automated, grind-out-XP kind)...some RPC monsters, unlike what I've seen before...and as many other surprises as the staff can come up with.

But the bottom line will be this: Endless Nights will be fun, surprising and FAIR roleplay. The GMs will administer the rules - which will be sparse at first, and stay that way, we hope - to everyone equally. What little commerce is on the ground will be totally RP-related.

Are you interested in bringing back the Light? Can you help us escape? (Do you want to talk about being a GM in our sim?) Talk to anyone mentioned above...but remember, this will not be for the faint of heart.

And the nights go on forever.

The Virtual Hockey League - it's a blast!

A dear friend of mine in SL, Rusty Seisenbacher (bless his drow-y soul), somehow managed to convince me that I might enjoy playing hockey with him. I went to watch a game or two, and as usual, I can't just watch. With Rusty's urging and support, I bit the bullet and agreed to try something new.

Rusty plays in the Virtual Hockey League, SL's newest and by far the best hockey league in SL. I hear there's another one, but it couldn't be nearly this much fun! Anyway, I wanted to get on Rusty's team, the Brain Freeze, but was convinced that I should instead join the Sim Crashers. I'm still not sure why Montecore Babcock, the owner and commissioner of the league, wanted me on his team, but I was flattered. Silly me. ;)

So I find myself out on the ice in my new custom jersey with my name on it. For starters, I didn't know which side of the ice to be on. Did I mention I've been to one - count them, ONE - hockey game in my entire life? I could only see the puck because Monte scripted it to show particles. My crappy laptop (yes, a bit more whinging!) might show me where it was, but by the time I could move towards it, it was gone. The ONLY way I could get the puck was on the faceoffs (or facefoos, which really confused me at first). If I could grab the bloody thing and skate - at least my 5fps version of skating - and shoot fast enough, before anyone got close to me, there was a slight possibiity I could score. A couple of times I even scored in the correct goal, too!

So there I was, barely able to move, not knowing the rules, hardly able to see across the ice - and I'm playing anyway. It is a BLAST! I compare it to combat because of the intensity - when you are in mouselook chasing the puck, nothing else matters. It all goes away. Learning to fight with melee weapons with such a slow machine really has paid off for me. Now that I can move with the best of 'em, I can still use the focus required with that old system.

I have learned that size truly does matter in hockey. Poor Neit goes on major steroids when the jersey goes on, and can now check with the big boys. Monte goes elephant-sized when he guards the goal. The script takes into account avatar volume, so for once being a small-sized avatar is a total disadvantage. (As an aside, I was out dancing the other night with an old friend who tends to favour formal events, and was decked out in my finest. When it was time to play hockey, I asked if he wanted to see me in my uniform. So there, in the middle of the dance floor, still in Random's arms in a ballroom dance, I change into my hockey jersey and skates. I'll upload a picture soon!)

Monte and the rest of the Sim Crashers have been incredibly patient with me as I've learned da Roolz, and practiced checking (by crashing into everyone). Loren Fitzgerald and KK (Kealan Klata) have held my hand and tried hard not to laugh (not very successfully) as I've made the typical noob mistakes. Some of the players from the other teams have been a bit surprised now that my new 'puter allows me a bit more freedom lately. Beavis Beckham (who has hockey down to an art is and impossible to get by) even allowed that I have been getting a teeny bit better. Beth Milos, Nic Renegade, Bunyip Fanshaw, CyberShaman420 Alter, Sugar Zuhrah, so many others - all wonderful players in their own right - have been so supportive and just FUN to be around. You guys are fantastic! Thank you for all your help.

I have been impressed with the scripting for the hockey itself. Monte was the instigator for the whole league, and did a good chunk of the scripting himself. It's easy to use, works seamlessly, and has had amazingly few glitches that I've seen. For SL lately, that's amazing!

But the thing that has impressed me the most about the VHL is the lack of drama. It's a competitive sport, so there has to be some - but the drama has been almost entirely about the game itself. Tempers do flare, and decisions are contested...it's a part of the game. At least in SL, there's no real blood, and it's a good thing!

With Monte's guidance and calming influence, the folks in the VHL are some of the most fun, intelligent and solid people I have met in Second Life. Crises have been handled quietly and with style. All the people who have served as referees have been quietly authorative and shown their leadership.

All large endeavours, in any world, reflect the person who leads them. The VLH reflects the quiet dignity and leadership of Montecore Babcock. Thank you, Monte, for what you have done. It's a tribute to all the folks of SL that there are such enclaves of pure fun to be found. You've done an amazing job.

Now, having said *that*, playing hockey naked is not unheard of - thongs are more common though. ;) Come to Axenfall to watch a VHL game! I may have made it sound quiet and dignified - it is SO not. I double-dog dare ya!

While you're there, throw something at Rusty, if I can drag him back...he deserves it for getting me involved in yet *another* time-intensive, competitive activity. Thank you, Rusty, you grumpy drow, you. ;)