Safari Glows

 It's all a question of perspective. Prims have been somewhat overlooked of late so it was a treat to revisit the medium, a sort of historical trip. But with plenty of fantasy thrown in. You learn something every time on Safari, about what works and what doesn't and sometimes something literary. Case in point: Beth Ghostraven found some chandeliers all green and glowy, like cavorite. I didn't even know what that was, but our host Cyberglo Cyberstar was immediately on her wavelength. It's that kind of a place.

The place?   We were visiting LoveGlo castle, a sort of poetic throwback to the beauty of building with prims. Cyberglo constructed the whole place in a day and filled it with legal freebies, hidden passages, caves, and all kinds of surprises. The proper address of the region is at the end of the post, as always.

CyberGlo as a little blue avie, with Beth Ghostraven, Sunshine Szavanna,
 Drango Po, Lux Tergeste and Kelso Uxlay

You approach the castle by water from a tower on the edge of the sim. Rez a boat, and sail over to the landing point. You can't do point to point tps within the castle, which created some unique challenges for our group of - I'm going to say 25 but I think we may have been more, only people kept crashing, including myself. 

The safari regulars are pretty good at not complaining (well, most of us, anyway) and also have the good sense to sit down whenever they can. It was impressive to note how many people were avoiding the more complicated mesh avatars that are beautiful at home but a lot less practical when out on the road.  For the occasion, the usually large-as-life Cyberglo had a tiny avie, so that we would not step on him. Most of us could not move, so he was fairly safe, and if not actively walking from room to room, we could cam around to see the layout and follow those who were able to walk. 

CyberGlo CyberStar: I built this grid b/c once I was locked out of osgrid for 6 months while they rebuilt their hard drives and I enjoyed having a hobby and something to do involving computers, graphics, networking, and virtual worlds.

Frank Gresham: Awesome sim, good crowd.

Beth Ghostraven: yes, and the lighting in these little nooks is very nice

Nara Nook: That is a lovely room above us

Lux Tergeste: Have you tried the sky egg? It's awesome!

There are many charming treasures on the region, freebies that CyberGlo has found in his many travels around the hyperverse. The general theme is fantasy, and it came as no surprise that when a song from the movie Legend came on, Cyb said that was one of his favorites.

Cyberglo Cyberstar: Dragonfyre is 10x more decorated than this castle, each room has things like combs, hairbrushes, etc, it's also a 1x1 oar, so anybody can download it from outworldz.

thirza ember: that's a lovely gift to the community!

Kelso with Dabici who really couldn't sit quietly!

Dabici Straulino: unable to sit quietly :) did you see in the fountain?   It is a radar, with little cubes showing where people are

Lux Tergeste: This would be nice for educational activities. Having students program bots in a language that is not theirs. 

CyberGlo explained about his genie lamp. You can use it to summon an NPC, and give that NPC any commands you wish. Nara asked if it could peel a grape, I got the impression the NPCs did rather more than that. Moments later, I accidently clicked on what seemed an empty space to me but turned out to be a sex bed. Let's draw a veil - possibly just as well that the NPCs did not rez for most of us, and thus my secret is safe.

CyberGlo CyberStar : the npc's have a very sophisticated script language created for them to be able to do anything - drive a boat around and pick up passengers, work in a kitchen peeling potatoes, even interact with people and give them whatever they request. The advancements made in npc's are outstanding. They can be fully scripted to carry on conversations and to use or do anything. Thanks to the script language built in, the genie lamp also contains a waypoint editor hud. You wear the hud, walk around, drop cones, then click save and the npc's will walk the paths you set

You could hear Nara's mind working. You'll remember how her grid Nara's Nook is famous for the romantic and literary builds, with lots of NPC action going on. It was a meeting of minds. You'll agree it was so good to see Nara again, and many more who joined us this week!  In the meantime, the sheer number of us was driving the automatic door script crazy. But the creaking sound was awesome, making the place feel like a genuine piece of antiquity.

The whole trip was a lesson that we can still make mad lag, even when the cpu for our host is behaving itself perfectly. All CyberGlo's regions are worth a visit, and we have proved that they are Safari proof!

Our second destination was on Craft.  Craft Grid turns 12 this week, and the big party is tonight, 27 January. But yesterday Grid founders Licu Rau, Tao Quan and Tosha Tyran let us have a quick pre party, with the wonderful guitar hero Wolem Wobbit. You can find his music on YouTube, Spotify, and follow him on Facebook

Tao and Licu

The grid has a steady population of real users (let's be honest, a lot of those statistics reported to Maria for her monthly report on Hypergrid Business are kinda improbable) and there are constantly new events happening. 

Nara and Tosha in the foreground

Lots of educators on Craft, including Edu3D and Statland, who do sterling work in the real world. They have been bringing students inworld to study and experiment in protected virtual environments since long before the Covid pandemic made remote learning such a commonplace. Kudos to Lux Tergeste and all the team at Edu3D!

Art and Juliet, Drang Po and Frank Gresham, who took the photo.

There are also many art destinations. Who can forget the Museo del Metaverso, run by Roxelo Babenco, and Art Blue's Amerika Art. Both these galleries are famous for their close ties to some of the biggest names in Second Life, There's also Katia Vanegas' Parc des Arts - which used to be on Francogrid, back in the day. The unmissable Ivory City, by Tosha Tyran and the late Lumiere Noir, and Ciliegia by Cherry Manga, just to mention a few. Lots of these places will be showcased at tonight's party and you can visit sim Crust, which is attached to Craft landing point, Hydra, where there is a sort of Expo that shows you all the wonderful work going on on the grid.

Sim Crust

The theme was 'International' and Dabici had a great outfit reflecting her French Canadian origins. Many of the rest of us nodded to the concept with a simple 'Hat of many flags'. Craft has always been an international grid, founded by four people from four different nations, and still today home to a wide number of languages and cultures.

Kelso, Dabici, and Lucy rocking the flag hat.

After the lag of the first hour, it took us all a while to get our breath back, but the soothing and inspiring music of Wolem soon had us getting back to normal. Well, mostly. Let's just say, some of us were still glowing.

Tao Quan: Don't forget our birthday party tomorrow here in this arena, starting at 12.00 Noon SLT 9pm CET. On Crust behind this sim are examples of building from our people and on the ledges of this arena are photos and teleports to some of the many regions in Craft. The motto of this year's party is the international flavour of our World, hence the flags - everyone represents a country represented here on Craft

Licu Rau: there will be a guided tour of Crust in a few days. On Crust people who are artists or builders have built something, without a particular plan or order, spontaneously

Lux Tergeste: Crust is the region with the celebratory exhibition, right?

 Eva Kraai: Crust is the region nearby

Lux Tergeste: a grid with a strong inclination for the arts, I would say

Tao Quan: arts and education

A fun concert and dance event, Don't miss the true party tonight January 27. See you there!

LoveGlo prim castle              cyberdatastorm.com:8002:LoveGlo

Craft birthday party venue    craft-world.org:8002:Hydra

Arcanquest, Mal and George, in the background