Random Ride Through the Stargate

On a particularly boring day last week I decided to simply fire up the ol' Stargate and see where a series of "/d Random" commands would take me. As the Stargate is pretty old technology on the grid, I figured the only places I would end up at would be older-than-dirt abandoned areas long forgotten by the pixels of time and barely worth a mention.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

/d Random

First stop took me to the Grayling Army Airfield (Grayling Airfield sim; 13, 128, 29). It's a nice little military base sim, with planes, bombers, and things of that nature. As I prefer the medieval past instead of that which is technologic, I only stayed for a short time and did a once over at the maximum range of my camera. The effort shows in the building of the sim, and appeared to be anything -but- an "abandoned place forgotten by the pixels."

/d Random

Stop #2 on my list of ten took me to Trinity Products and Defcon 1 (Amella sim; 34, 29, 128). After emerging on the floor above where the stargate was (not even the stargates are safe when you route teleporting to a set point), I had a look around to find that it was full of transformers and Star Trek things... mostly starships (some of which appear to be flyable versions).

The building also had a lot of barren land around it, making me wonder just how often it was visited. The sim itself looks barren on the world map, quite a bit off the nearest major road. Makes me wonder if they couldn't move it closer to the road so it could be seen by people who have the $L to spend, because they're -not- going to see it from the main road unless they're looking right at it.

/d Random

Off next to "Earth" (Dreamworld Gem sim; 83, 84, 22). It looked to be an office with a pretty neat teleporter effect they set up. But I ran into a dead end as the only way out seemed to be blocked by a large prim, so it was back to the gate after a very brief stay.

/d Random

Chronotis Sec at New Gallifrey (New Gallifrey sim; 161, 71, 3273) was by far the most impressive place I found on my travels. It looked like a bit of a Dr. Who museum, with a couple of doors off to one side of the landing point declaring "Beware of BOB." Naturally, I went straight for the doors.

Bob's a dinosaur. A Triceratops, to be exact. Unfortunately, I encountered him in a bit of a spot --- he'd ended up with his nose to the door I emerged from, and one of his hind legs had gotten caught in the rocks behind him... such is the fate of objects left "physical" in SL, I suppose.

I was VERY VERY impressed by the amount of work done on the area I did explore. The textures were amazing, and I smiled to myself as I found I'm not the only one to retexture both the outside -and- the inside of the "anywhere doors" used to get from one place to another.

5 Stars, hoards, or whatever. I would suggest going to see this build.

Dr. Who isn't my thing, so after about 20 minutes of looking around...

/d Random

My next stop was Fisher Island (Fisher Island sim; 192, 118, 3002). As it was 3000 meters in the sky I figured it was going to be some sort of hidden base or something just as interesting.

It wasn't. It was a flat featureless megaprim with a stargate. NEXT!

/d Random

I didn't stay very long at Vico (Vico sim; 200, 78, 701). I ended up on someone's build in the sky that was currently in progress, and they'd set a stargate out to accept random wanderers on the network. A quick hello, a quicker goodbye, and it was off again on my trips through the stargate network (double-checking my co-ords for these locations, I went back a few days later to find only empty air, resulting in a 700-meter skydive). Whee!

/d Random

It was off to the Rizzo sim (Rizzo sim; 48, 40, 501), which ended up a tiny shop in the sky, appropriately named the "Little Shop". This one had TWO stargates in close proximity to each other, so when I next triggered one, I'd trigger them both. The shop itself had a couple of vendors, but as they seemed to be Dr. Who vendors... yeah, time for me to "choose a gate". Triggering the stargates, one of them was about three times as slow on the rotations. I don't know why that is.

I tried triggering my home gate before hitting a random one --- only one succeeded, the other one shut down as "gate not found".

/d Random

I wound up at the campsite of the "civil barbarian" Aaron Kukulcan (Adeo sim; 20, 84, 38). This DID seem like an old spot to me and just had that "empty" vibe going. On the world map the area looks mostly undeveloped. It's on a small set of three private islands though, and who am I to judge... perhaps they wanted it mostly undeveloped wilderness as a nice and peaceful place to relax in.

Another two stargates, but the first choice lead directly into a packed sim (as in, 20 people near the landing point) with a sim name that sounded like it was a den of vampires. Not wanting to end up fed to the undead, I picked the second of the two gates.

/d Random


The result was the Destiny Isles, a solitary wilderness sim (Destiny Isles sim; 69, 153, 22). I laughed when I did a search a week later to find there is not only a Destiny Isle sim, but a Destiny Isles sim (with an s) as well.

It carried the "old" vibe, as if it hadn't been used in a while. Nothing spectacular to see here, unless you count the terraformed box canyon as part of "not being spectacular". It was the most creative use of terraforming I'd seen in a while and for a brief time considered doing it to my dragon cave and layering a megaprim over it as its roof. But since I have changed the appearance of my home four times in the last 5 weeks, I thought... nah.

Still, a very good job to the sim owner. The effort shows.

/d Random

My final stop ended up being a private residence, so I'm withholding the location.

Let me just say two words. Murphy's Law.

After that, I knew it was time to stop warping myself through space, time, and the grid, so I did a quick "/d wyv" and headed home.

So it does seem that not only is the stargate network not an abandoned piece of technology as I originally thought, but it is in fact thriving. You can get a free modifiable stargate at OS Labs over in Eternal Calm (210, 49, 22). It's about 125 prims though, so you'd better have room for it.

Xymbers Slade

Reader Submitted: A Visit to MadPea

For the founder of Madpea Productions, Kiana Writer, for sponsoring their gridwide Hunt.

It all started by rezzing a funny MadPea on our island to gain more traffic. But it was not the traffic that reached my av's heart, it was the way the Team of MadPea created the identity of a sim stuffed with interactive games and so much more besides that! Officially they are called Madpea Productions. That promises a lot more than only interactive in-world games and so they do offer more!

After hiding our MadPea, I received the group chat of all hunters, finding a really relaxed group of members just hunting and having fun finding all Peas hidden grid-wide. Even a ranking online to see how they all found the Mad green little creatures.

By their website, I found interesting products for business owners. Not the main-business for MadPea Productions, but if you offer Second Life residents so much advanced and fun interactive games for free, you need some sponsoring and that's where it all began for me.I embraced their AdNet Advertisement system and all group-chats made me very curious about those games.

As a creator, I almost never go out or explore Second Life. Gaming is abracadabra to me, but the perfect information on their website was attracting me like a bee to honey. I found a spare moment to TP myself and give me the opportunity to focus on one of their games. So difficult to chose.

So late at night I walked to a library high on a mountain and clicked a book called 'Book of Spells'. I'd seen this word in the group chats, used by gamers for helping gamers and hunters. The book is the HUD itself and to wear that was an easy task. To find the Ring to work with was easy too, I saw that laying and glittering in a corner of my eyes a minute before. Then I got the first spell and got stuck immediately!! What can I do with only a spell, when I've nothing else then a ring who doesn't respond to me typing the spell itself in local chat?? I tried to click several things, but i really needed to do the first step first to get any closer to all the other spells I was looking forward to work out.

The day after, Sweetdevil of Madpea's recommended me to start with Kaaos Effect game. So after I landed on their main TP point, Madpea Circus, I could start right away after I took a look at the good information given out.

As a real game-dummy, I clicked several times on the wrong objects, forming the little hand in the hope it should start working. But wearing and using a HUD is new to me, besides the AO-huds I've used several times. (Still walking like a duck after 3.5 years, but less lag!)But with the patience I have, endless it is, I tried several times, getting the HUD three times too. So while smiling to myself, my screen changed and I got the green text with the first explanation and I read and waited. I ended up in a room of a German U-Boot (Submarine). I needed to find items to open a Submarine shutter. In the rooms behind it several hints could be found. But for me it was looking for an unidentified object. I really didn't know what i was looking for. But it must be crucial to find my way out of here and send out coordinates to find the next location to finish this game...

Yeah, I got out, found the right keyword and being proud of myself I ended up in the next room. My HUD shows a lot of red smileys, one, only one, has changed into a green smiley... oh my, need to do a lot of these little adventures on my own to work this out!!

And this is only one single game of so many they offer.

The 3rd day I pick up my HUD and re-enter the game where I left it. Finding missing letters of a typewriter in an old office of a newspaper, flashing back to 1930s. The scenes are absolutely stunning, great sense for details, beautifully textured, everything works. But still I feel myself a gaming-dummy. Sweetdevil had told me it would take me about 2 hours to do this game. Well the first 3 rooms took me much more then 2 hours. It kept being exciting, challenging and still fun to work out.

My work called me home, out of the game. But I returned to Madpea as soon as I could. To try a more simple game that would not take this much time. The 'Escape from the 70's Room' looked nice. But once inside, the door will be closed and stay closed till you did all things necessary to get out again. Again I spend a full hour in the room, someone is waiting outdoors to enter too, but only one can play this funny game at the time. I gave up on a last detail I couldn't get done.

Next to these great interactive in-world games they offer more. I visited their website with the forum. To join the Madpea Community. To ask anything you like about their products, talk with other hunters about the July's Duck Hunt, give comments or ask the crew a question. During most games you can earn Madpoints. The Madpoints can be used to buy products made by Madpea, to get in-world objects or to get discounts and enter games. Most games are for free, I saw mini-games for only 5 lindens to enter. So even newbies or low-budget avatars can enter and have fun! They are hidden all over Madpea Island.

And that's only about the games they offer! haven't even spoken about all other products like AdNet, a smooth running advertisement system, paid once, rezzed all over the grid for ever. Or Tradeware. A kind of webshop with the service to use their server or hosted by Tradeware and using your own to sell SL-files outside SecondLife. They are working on new features, but for me, as a hard working creator, the games are just the way to escape from work a creative and fun way. To relax and explore, learn something new and meet new people.

The website to Madpea is at http://madpeagames.com/nhome/ .

“An Anonymous Blonde”

* * * * * * * * * * *

ADDITION: In August, the following Youtube about Madpea appeared on the Second Life website.

Summer Treats - Aero Pines Park

With the myriad of fun that has always been at Aero Pines Park and Recreation Center already, you would think Cindy Bolero would be sitting back relaxing, but no! There are some new activities for your summer enjoyment.

She has created a wonderful lagoon for mermaids and mermen! You can go there and just hang out or dance. If you have not tried being a merperson don’t worry, there are tails there for you to try. There is now a leisurely balloon ride you can take to float slowly over all the sims to see the mountains and valleys there. The bike trail is complete now! You will ride through 8 regions of lovely country and hill side with delightful stops along the way.

I stopped in at an Indian Village to try the activites . I switched to a motorcycle at Zoe’s Roadhouse but switched to a helicopter when I reached the Seaplane marina . All the vehicles are there for you to use along the way. Just watch out for the Horses traveling on some of the bike paths. If you want to try the horse riding you will be able to get a demo at the Equestrian Center. That way you can go off trail too.

I love this area!! Options are so many! I have to keep going back and so will you. There are residents and you will know by the closed doors. Any buildings with open doors are there for you to enter. You will find a note card with all the places along the bike trail, but will find much more yourself. Oh, by the way, I saw a horse race track under construction!! What next?!

The entrance to Aero Pines Park and Recreation Center is in the Equus sim at (11,199,22)

Gemma Cleanslate

Trendone City

Recently I had a chance to meet Xstorm Radek when I visited Trendone City. Trendone is a great town that he and his wife, Patty1 Rosca, created. Trendone (234, 128, 39,). The city has existed for about a year and a half. Xstorm said he has lost track of the number of stores and buildings there now. After walking through it a couple of times, I can understand why. Trendone City is huge. To get around quicker I took a taxi, which really moves and has great sounds, too. But watch out for the curves!

What makes Trendone City unique, besides a lot of very different shops, is its emphasis on helping new residents and new entrepreneurs. Xstorm explained, "My wife and I hope we can help others and make the continent work." To do this, he offers space at free or very low rents so that new people can get started.

Like all great cities, Trendone has its own Chinatown, Little China 1. Trendone (234, 129, 39). A very dramatic entrance sets the tone for a place that is both unique and fun. For me, the most unusual store is the Chinese laundry, Happy Dragon Dry Cleaning. Trendone (245, 87, 32). Owned by Valentine Easterwood, this is the first dry cleaners I have seen in SL. This one is decorated with beautiful Chinese art, too. When you drop off your sweaters and suits, be sure to check out the Lost and Found. You might just find a surprise outfit. Be sure to go behind the counter and check out the hanging suit bags. There are surprises here, too.

Nearby, The Llewellyn Gallery (Trendone 225,87,34), has tank tops that communicate, like the one that says "Many Peoples, Only One Earth". You can find very affordable art there, too. A selection of ladies Victorian gowns is along the back wall.

Another interesting shop, PD, sells Digi Pants, tank tops, leather jackets, and more. Trendone (246, 104, 36). All the outfits a rugged alpha avatar needs.

For the young at heart, a visit to Wolverlís Toybox is a must. Find it just outside of China 1 at Trendone (195, 56, 33). Here you can pick up a Velveteen Rabbit for only $20L. Or buy a bouncy ball that really bounces for an equally great, low price. I bought one in yellow. While I was there I also picked up a free snow family that Wolverlís is giving away. Íll have to find someplace to store it for a few months, but when winter arrives, Íll be ready.

In another part of town, along Triffit Street, there is a large help center where a listing of real estate can be found. Because the emphasis is on helping people get started, some really low rentals are available. An apartment rents for $10L per week. Although you only get 1 prim and there aren't any windows, the price makes it an affordable place to change clothes and rest your tired paws. Large commercial space that comes with 100 prims is available for $140L per week.

Trendone City encourages building, too, with a huge sandbox and a neat contest that both new and older residents can try. "Aunties Building Challenge" is a held on the 1st and 3rd Sundays. The challenge is to build an object that fits the theme for the day using 100 prims or less within 30 minutes. Katisha Honi is the Host and organizer of the challenge. When I visited, the winner was a neat pirate boat made by Throatwobbler Colinsgrove. To join up or get more info, search for Aunties Building Challenge under the group tab.

Grey Lupindo