Goodwill

          Goodwill. Stop and think about it. Why? Because that one word holds the key to the survival of the human race, and to your personal health and happiness. It's also the world's greatest time-saving gadget. Find a way to slip it into all those nasty sharp bits of your life. You'll be glad you did.
          Two builds that speak to the good in all of us this week, one is a celebration of pixel power, the other a meditation on what it means to lose your home in the real world. HG Addresses, as always at the end of the post.

          First, a crowd of us went over to Littlefield to see the new region, Goodwill. Shopping galore!

Camryn Darkstone: Hello Toby! Welcome Alya!  Hello Selby, Szavanna! Welcome to our little strip mall :-) We made some other little side stores just for fun, lol
Jessie Campbell: oooo a smoke shop! nothing like a good Cuban!
Camryn Darkstone: feel free to go on in and look around, everyone You'll find free content from a bunch of different grids We wanted to show what great content is available on Open sim
Aime Socrates: maybe i'll find some cheese inside?

Thirza Ember: walter, camryn, whose idea was this region?
Camryn Darkstone: This was Walt's idea :-) I built it to his specifications
Walter Balazic: we are mostly from the US so we tried to make this look like a 70's / 80's strip mall.
Lucy Afarensis: Very accurate
James Atlloud: I love the architecture - reminds me of a RL location with antique shops I like to visit.
Walter Balazic: The store is based more on grids because it's incredibly hard to track down actual creators to focus on them. I came up with the idea after seeing too much Kitely Marketplace remarks about the content creators here. we thought this would be a good way for people to sample all the great content in the HG and then go visit the grids where they came from.

Camryn and Walter explain their goodwill philosophy

Camryn Darkstone: You all should be able to take pretty much whatever you see in there. There is so much great free content on Opensim, it's nice to be able to spotlight it
Walter Balazic: I hope everyone gets good use out of this, we want to update it continually - the content we've found so far is wonderful, and I hope it brings people to those grids so they can see how much is actually available
Taarna Welles: I'm always very proud if people showing my items. It means they like it and that's the best credit you can get :)
Walter Balazic: and we can't thank you enough for your wonderful content
Thirza Ember: People with limited time and knowledge of opensim, who are trying to quickly find the content they need for a community or college build, for example, usually end up going to an online marketplace and end up spending money - this offers a free full perm alternative to that, which I appreciate. But how would you respond if someone says 'oh but the point of my content is to bring people to my sooperdooper sim'?
Walter Balazic: that's precisely why we did that. We didn't vacuum up every prim on a grid
Szavanna.Sunshine: vacuum up prims hehe
Walter Balazic: we took a sample in most cases just to showcase it
Camryn Darkstone: Yes the point is to highlight each of the grids and what they've got going
Dirk Mathers: Hopefully if someone sees something they like it will encourage them to visit the place it came from
Alya VonZ: Pretty amazing collection of freebies:)
George Equus: This place sure need some time,
alex54 Salamander: thanks for all here, it is a good work
Walter Balazic: the signs above each set shows where it came from, and can go visit and get more or meet the people there. some of Littlefield's Content is there, OSGrid, Aine's stuff from Refuge, Taarna's amazing content from Bubblez, Franco's FestAvi, etc.. For some time now, Littlefield has been known as a 'No Export grid' because a lot of our content is licensed. However, we wanted to have an area where our CC and other free items would be available for the HG. I'm talking to all my creators now, and trying to get them to get me some CC content.
Szavanna Sunshine: how do we add to this collection?
Walter Balazic: just let me know, we would be thrilled, we just need to know what grid you want to represent so we can make the platform above the display, we welcome content from anywhere, but we are trying to avoid the commercial grids if possible.
Alya VonZ: maybe an idea to make portals to the grids? some grids are unfamiliar to me, so would be great
Walter Balazic: the HG URL is on each display, so you can type that into map and it will take you right to their grid

Jessie Campbell: GREAT PLUG for a grid, I like it a lot

Camryn Darkstone:  I enjoyed thinking up what kinds of stores one finds in strip malls... and building the nail salon, bail bonds, liquor store, dry cleaners and so on lol... the funny signs were Walt's idea
Szavanna Sunshine: yes great shops outside:D especially in case you find yourself in jail...
            Our second stop was on sim Far Far Away.
          This region is by Tosha Tyran. It was Ger Orsini who, some time ago, suggested it as a good place for us to visit, and the timing seems very appropriate.
             To prevent lag from affecting the hunters, she also organized a dance floor and Sunshine Szavanna was spinning some tunes.  We're an international bunch, and the music reflected our love of travel, and the way that different nationalities and races in this little blue planet have far much in common than we are led to believe.

          Politics? No way! Just an opportunity to walk a mile in the moccasins of people living in war torn countries. Tosha's build does not presume to present a solution to the refugee crisis, just illustrate their experience, through a hunt 'game'.

             The main part of the installation is this house, and using a HUD that you pick up att the door, you go from room to room seeking out the things you'll need on the road - clothes, money, documents, food. 
        As you wander from room to room, a bit frustrated, trying to find all the things you need. You sit on the goats to see if that's part of the hunt (- turns out, it isn't). The style of the house isn't your average western suburban dwelling, but gradually, the various rooms, the courtyard, the furniture and the garden, all become familiar spaces to you.

            And when you've got all your supplies, you find the camels and are transported... back to the house. But it's not the same. War has reduced it to a burnt out shell. There's nothing to stay for, no shelter, no peace. Now you're looking for refuge.

          Find the boat and get away. But it's not that easy. The rest of the world has got its own problems. And now you've seen the view from both sides of the fence.
      This is a build that reminds us that goodwill is not naivety, not permissiveness, it's not about favoring strangers over family, or closing an eye to evil. It's that your small acts of kindness are a drop in the ocean, an ocean upon which the hope of the world is afloat.

HG Addresses
Goodwill Mall of the Hyperverse      lfgrid.com:8002:goodwill
Refugees!                                           craft-world.org:8002:far far away