On sim Sirocco, one of the VAR regions belonging to the 3rd Wind community, on Zetaworlds, Han BoShi, Dolfke Barbosa, Jed Dagger, Ellemir Maven, Nila Mari and Alia Soulstar awaited the arrival of the Safari crew. What better time to confirm or deny a popular myth about Star Trek
Dolfke Barbosa: am I the only one wearing a uniform?
Thirza Ember: my other avatar has a red uniform on... does that mean I'll get eliminated in the first scenes ?
Nila Mari: /me chuckles
Nila Mari: /me chuckles
Alia Soulstar: yes, our priority is to thin out security every mission
Ellemir Maven: There was an analysis done that said red shirts are not actually more prone to death and dismemberment.
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| Left to right, Jedburgh, Alia, Nila and in red, Security Officer Dolfke Barbosa |
Dolfke Barbosa: they tend to seed death and dismemberment
Ellemir Maven: lol it does seem to be true of the original series. I have not checked these numbers... Being a "Red Shirt" on the USS Enterprise is one of the most dangerous jobs in any (imaginary) military. Don't believe me? SiteLogic founder Matt Bailey crunched the numbers: 13.7% of Kirk's crew died during their three-year televised mission. 73% of the deaths were Red Shirts.
Jedburgh Dagger: but as a whole there were more redshirts on the crew
Ellemir Maven: /me gets dol a second red shirt to wear
Dolfke Barbosa: thx for that, Elle, I will wear it with care at my funeral
Alia Soulstar: the dangers of space are best represented by the violent deaths of security
Dolfke Barbosa: Tasha Yar her dead was not necessary for the plot, and she wore yellow
Ellemir Maven: It was necessary for her contract though
Dolfke Barbosa: are you offering me a contract, Elle
Alia Soulstar: with a Christmas bonus... if you reach Christmas
A lot of people in Opensim also frequent SL and so even though PBR is still a bit of a mess, they use the latest Firestorm viewer for both SL and Opensim, because that's the only way they can have Voice in SL now. Unfortunately, we learned only as the Safari began that Zetaworlds has banned the latest FS viewer, so that meant quite a few of the group either couldn't visit or had to do some somersaults to get to the first destination.
Lifted Pixel: thankfully i am lazy and haven't updated my firestorm in a while, I don't see Opensim jumping on PBR right away, I feel fidelity is secondary to function here. PBR is standard and it's sad that LL is only NOW implementing it. If they integrated PBR with mesh, people would have a much better time making assets that can be used all over the metaverse
Dings Digital: 7.1. has huge texture loading problems
Star Ravenhurst: I am scared to try the new viewer, I will wait until I am forced to get it
Alia Soulstar: yes, Zeta isn't letting the new FS in until it cleans up its PBR issues which are problematic in OS Vincent has suggested it should be compliant by January
Lifted Pixel: First thing to load are James' crocs
Dings Digital: hehe yes
Neo Cortex: Hi @ll!
Tina Bey: hola a todos!!!
Taarna Welles: Hello sweet peeps
Alia Soulstar: greetings everyone, welcome to 3rd Wind Community, for anyone who doesn’t know our history, we are pretty much the entire active community that was 3rd Rock Grid before it shut down. 3rd Rock was run by a not for profit, the Stichting Cultural Harbour, with an educational and arts focus and, and that ethos was important to us so… we decided through a series of discussions and initiatives to stay together as a unit, and to find a new home for our activities, we hired a server from Zeta, which means we are semi-autonomous within the Zeta Grid framework… we allocate land, both through private sales and community trust, and monitor server performance and do most of our own admin
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| Left to right, Han, Jed, Alia, Nila and Dolfke, with Safari goer Dings Digital in the white shirt. |
Lifted Pixel: it's good you kept the community together
Alia Soulstar: but Zeta handle the server side deployments. We still operate as a not for profit, with income streams from land sales and patrons and, despite our ultra low land rates (e.g., a 2x2 with 10k prims is $2.50 a month, etc) we still generate a healthy surplus which we feed into an arts an education programme. We pay live performers and among the arts initiatives is a satellite Nuna Gallery in SL (look for the Cultural Harbour region) that commissions exhibitions and TEDTalks - our next feature there in a few weeks is the amazing Rage Darkstone who mixes Animesh with choreography with light with sculpture.
Lifted Pixel: neat :3
Alia Soulstar: and of course we have a very active Starfleet RP group in both grids, in fact there is a ship mission going on right now that we might gatecrash
James Atlloud: ! sos
Alia Soulstar: Those of you who are regulars on these Safaris may have visited Nuna Gallery on 3RG, the satellite installations like Aurora or HAL 9000, Starfleet Infinity, etc, or perhaps attended a Blender Class or one of Lorin Tone’s sound classes
Mal Burns: i see areas with Blender signage
Taarna Welles: We did, a long time ago.
Alia Soulstar: All of that is here now, and more besides… if you open up your map....
James Atlloud: ! wow
Alia Soulstar: this region is Sirocco, it’s an 8x8 with Nuna Gallery top left corner, a shopping area top right, the hub we are standing on is bottom left and the town hall where we have monthly meetings is in the smiley face bottom right... we self-govern via an elected Steering Committee and all our finances are transparent, tabled at monthly meetings in that hall, the two rows of 8x8s are community lands…, they include arts, entertainment and education zones, along with historical and iconic builds from 3RG and out to the right and below are various private and gaming regions. Where we are standing here is a teleport HUB, the big signs are touch teleports to various destinations in the community estate
Lifted Pixel: it feels very solid and official if that makes sense
Alia Soulstar: there is a lot of info about all of this on our website...https://3rdwc.com
Thirza Ember: I'm curious to know, did you all meet first in SL, or did the 3rd rock community just develop over the years in opensim?
Dolfke Barbosa: The latter Thirza, most of us came from 3RG to here, you can't hardly see the difference
Alia Soulstar: well 3rd Rock was one of the oldest grids, like 2nd or 3rd to appear... so people accumulated there over a long period
Star Ravenhurst: Why did you choose to on another grid rather than another option?
Alia Soulstar: I think most people found Opensim after an intro to SL but this community really just formed around a philosophy, back in the Laz days the slogan was "A better world" and there was a lot of entertainments and charity gigs
Thirza Ember: the safari back in 2014-18 came to 3rd rock a lot, invited by Zinnia Frenzy and Kered Owl
Dolfke Barbosa: Kered Owl is here too
Jedburgh Dagger: Just to answer Star's question, as a group the community wanted to stay together, and without going into the nitpicky details the big issue we faced as 3RG was the IT/server side of the house, and several of us forwarded the idea that moving the community to another grid was the most logistically simple.
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| Jedburgh Dagger |
Lifted Pixel: going with established services instead of rolling you own is almost always a good idea
Alia Soulstar: The Stichting really formalised the art and education bias when it took over and that attracted like minded people. I think people wash up where the environment suits them and most opensimmers want to find a less commercial application of VR
Lifted Pixel: I'm so glad you call it vr. vr is more than just HMDs
Tosha Tyran: em, for a german dummy... what is HMDR?
Lifted Pixel: head mounted display! vr headset :)
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| Lifted, Thirza, Star, Tina and Tosha |
Thirza Ember: so another question, why did you opt for var regions, rather than standard size?
Alia Soulstar: we haven't so much opted for Vars (anyone can have whatever size they want) but we find around 5x5 is a general optimum or a bigger region with water around it... too big and you have a lot of empty land... here though, the community builds are 8x8s with water between islands... it's just tidy and it minimises lag; we have experimented and run with things we like.
Ellemir Maven: That is correct. We combined things that made sense to us.
Thirza Ember: so that means on one sim here, you have stuff that on the old grid was on several different sims
Alia Soulstar: yes, like this region has the large Nuna Gallery in the top left corner, just one quarter of the region
James Atlloud: IIRC wolf territories grid was in the mix, It's great to have options!
Thirza Ember: I attended one presentation, and was very impressed by how in depth the process went. You really got your facts clear before deciding
Alia Soulstar: yes, we did look at Wolf and others but in the end we wanted to control our own resources and having a bespoke server made that possible, and we are a NFP [Not For Profit] so any surplus we make goes back to artists and creators, rather than a grid owner or corporate
Dolfke Barbosa: At 3RG we had to pay much for the servers, we did not had the income anymore to sustain them, and there was very much work on them to maintain the services, Zeta does that now for us, for a far less monthly price tag
Thirza Ember: I love the landscape that is on a curve, over there, on the edge of the sim like a dalton sphere, but long LOL
Mal Burns: literally on its edge
Thirza Ember: hey Dave, you made it!
Doctor Dave: Hello, I would have been here sooner but ZW didn't like my GV passport.
Thirza Ember: this grid has proved to be a challenge today, but safaristas are a tough crowd to keep out!
Alia Soulstar: yes, Zeta does bottleneck entry... anyway, rather than have me talking at you , we should have a little explore...
Star Ravenhurst: Let's do it!! :)
James Atlloud: yay - let's explode! er, explore
Alia Soulstar: there is a trek away mission going on so if you'd like a peek at that, I'll pass around a LM
Doctor Dave: You left cadets unattended?
Thirza Ember: sure... we can try to assimilate them
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| Some of the roleplayers of Anubis - Luke Koda (center) seeks to calm the felinoid Storm Decuir |
Luke Koda: Hoomans used to scare me... not now
Storm Decuir: /me jumps back in shock!
Luke Koda: is ok, friend cat
Thirza Ember: we come in peace... or should I say, we come in pieces
Storm Decuir: /me hisses
Luke Koda: Cap, this one has sustained injury, recommend we get it to ship
Storm Decuir: /me shifts nervously as she watches al the strangers suddenly showing up.
Luke Koda: Is ok, friend they good and want to help
Neo Cortex: We rarely eat any locals...
Alia Soulstar: Greetings Captain Roffo
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| James on a horse. And some other horses. |
Star Ravenhurst: We like horses!
Mal Burns: calls the rezzer but my voice gets horse
Lifted Pixel: nice! relics! my favorite!
Storm Decuir: no touch relics!
Thirza Ember: some pretty Luna Lunaria Egyptian pieces here !
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| Captain Kestral Roffo (center) explains how the roleplay works, |
Kestral Roffo: Doc please examine
Mal Burns: this this a dead dinkie?
Lifted Pixel: it's an owl with an ouchie
Doctor Dave: Examine him? well, pass me a tricorder. But you should really have your own Doctor look at him.
Dakota Westford: /me kneels down and runs her tricorder over the owl creature
Medical Tricorder: scanning life form
Medical Tricorder: life form not found in data base
Dakota Westford: I'm going to have to beam it up to the ship with your permission Captain
Kestral Roffo: do so, Doctor. Good evening HG Safari, let me explain our mission. We found this planet on last weeks Mission, after we come across it and had not data on it. A team were sent down to explore, a alien was reported, so we have come back this week to explore it more
Georgina Mills: You should show people the 'bridge' of USS Shogun. The rest of the ship
Kestral Roffo: but this week there are two creatures, now these species we do not know, so could be a new civilization
Dakota Westford: /me taps her comm saying 'Westford to Transporter two to beam up to Sickbay
Kestral Roffo: now our mission is to explore new places and peoples; we have found this Alien injured, the team will take both back to the USS Shogun... now our assessment is this: possible new race
Watching Star and Tina riding off across the darkling desert, a question came to mind.
Thirza Ember: Does having such big var regions make more complex missions possible?
Alia Soulstar: I don't think we've reached our complexity limit yet Thirza, but we have way more bespoke resources here than we do in the SL branch of Starfleet
Dolfke Barbosa: the big VAR's just made the Missions more appealing, Thirza, infinite opportunities
Kestral Roffo: crew beam up to Shogun and prepare ship ready for departure
Storm Decuir: what did you do with frrrrend!
Mystik Menkaura: Your friend is in good care
Luke Koda: friend ok, we take care
Storm Decuir: not ok no heerrrrr
Storm Decuir: /me shifts from one paw to the other flexing her claws.
Luke Koda: felinoid female, she afraid
Lifted Pixel: /me backs up as the cat gets mad...I don't think a cat will understand until they see their friend :)
Doctor Dave: The Owl and the Pussy Cat went to ... Space... In a beautiful pea green starship?
Thirza Ember: Alia, how long does a roleplay session last each time?
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| Left to right, Alia, Ellemir Maven, and Officer Georgina Mills, part of the roleplay on Wednesdays |
Ellemir Maven: From 1 -2 hours Thirza. We usually plan for at least an hour and sometimes as long as 2 hours, but we are always ready to do the "on next weeks exciting episode"
Alia Soulstar: obviously we added chaos to this RP arriving as a random flotilla but
Thirza Ember: we have become part of the Lore now!
Alia Soulstar: most are tight stories that run around an hour and 30
Lifted Pixel: how much planning goes into an episode vs how much gets made up as you go?
Alia Soulstar: that varies from Captain to Captain Lifted but the story designer usually plots out the action and creates the props, and the Captain controls the direction, but players add their own actions to the story
Lifted Pixel: do you rotate who does the writing that week?
Alia Soulstar: mostly it's the Captain's responsibility though anyone who wants to write an episode is most welcome, we encourage creativity, the idea of RP, especially in a canonical setting like Trek is to be adult kids (as I see it)... we are just playing but we have high gaming standards, and the missions play like tv episodes
Lifted Pixel: absolutely! you don't have to stop playing because you're an adult
Thirza Ember: this has been such fun, thank you all for showing us your wonderful set up here... it's been a revealing visit - so great that your community has been able to stick together
Dings Digital: yes, happy to hear that
Neo Cortex: Sounds like a great place for creative people!
Dolfke Barbosa: you haven't seen 99% of 3TH Wind yet ^^
Alia Soulstar: If you have LMs of the HUB on Sirocco, please come back and explore, we are always open to new members and Starfleet is always recruiting too
Star Ravenhurst: Thank you for hosting us. I enjoyed it very much.
James Atlloud: Thank you Zeta folks - great to see ST Infinity is doing well.
HG Address: hop://hg.zetaworlds.com:80/Sirocco/448/245/24
from here you can teleport to many interesting sights on this region, and others within the 3rd Rock territory
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