Pure Lunacy at Magicland

Lunacy? No, it was a great idea. Stone and  Hope Lunasea invited the Safari over to Neverworld grid for a visit this week to Magicland. The theme of the visit to this region is theme parks, as in Disney and co - all the fun of the fair. We met outside the cinema.

Stone Lunasea: Welcome everyone to Hopestone's Magicland!

James.Atlloud: great music

Hope Lunasea: Hey there, everyone. Welcome.

Dings Digital: Hello :)

Generally there are two Thirzas on every tour, one arrives before the crowd, and the other is the last to arrive, so it's always interesting to see the two different perceptions of a sim on the same screen. This region responded manfully to the onslaught of 15 plus strangers from all over the HG. In terms of avatars, Safari people on the whole try to go for something not too complex or full of daft scripts and HUDs, (using a legacy body instead of a basic mesh one can instantly lower your complexity by over 100k, for example) and we generally also try to keep our My Suitcase folder pretty empty, knowing that the sim has to comb through all our belongings when we arrive, including broken assets we maybe have from freebie shopping in OSGrid, and that all takes resources away from the main thing, which is showing us the sim.

Star Ravenhurst: Hugs... I see a lot of body parts floating around,  and I have no hair!!

Dings Digital: who's leg is this?

Taarna Welles: Not mine :)

James Atlloud: Am I all white again?

Thirza Ember: no james you're in a dinner suit

Kelso Uxlay: Nice suit James

James Atlloud: ty Kelso - my favorite so far

Stone Lunasea: There is a big gold dance ball up in the air behind me if anyone wants to dance :)

Taarna Welles: Need to dance with this music

Thirza Ember: lol gradually all will arrive... it's like going by train, some of your stuff is in the end wagon, but it will all get to the station eventually

Govega Sachertorte: lol give it a minute

Yara Eild: Hello everyone :-)

Alex .Salamander: Hello everyone :-)

Star Ravenhurst: Hi Alex and Yara!

Hope Lunasea: Lots of people. lol...

Tosha Tyran: you are all... alll... transparent

Govega Sachertorte: yea but slowly coming in

Tosha Tyran: now I am all dressed, dear Forest... to me...

Forest Azure: lol, that is what you think, Tosha :)

Star Ravenhurst: Nope Tosha, still undies - Gotta love traveling the Hypergrid!

Stone Lunasea: Alright, everyone rezzed in?... I thought I'd start with a bit of the park's history

Stone and Hope Lunacy

Stone Lunasea: Established in 2014 as That Place Amusement Park on SecondLife and in 2016 in Opensim, we quickly rose to fame as a Top 10 Hot Spot on SL and were eventually blogged by the Lindens and made a Featured Destination. We still operate a park on SL in the Linula region, next door to The Unknown Theme Park on the mainland. We've changed grids over the years, but have been on Neverworld for over 3 years now and are pretty sure this is our permanent home. It's a great place to live!

James Atlloud: So good to hear positive stories about grids.

Dings Digital: yes, great

Stone Lunasea: Magicland, our most recent expansion, was launched just last year at Christmas time. This region features our Electrical Light Parade, Movie Theater, and Shopping District. There's also a few rides here: the Magic Carpet Ride, Alien Abduction, and Santa's Sleigh Ride, a left over from Christmas, as well as our Hot Air Balloon Merry-Go-Round. Finally, behind the theater you'll find Mickey's Fishing Hole, where you can fish for prizes. We have Free Movies every Monday here at Magicland Theater, the schedule can be found at the main landing point or on the wall inside the theater.

The Cinema schedule. In the foreground, Uta Warbaum

Hope Lunasea: Oh yes and I think Neverworld is our perfect fit. :)

Stone Lunasea: yeah we try to do both, they both have their pros & cons

Thirza Ember: why both? what does each offer that's different in your experience

Stone Lunasea: Honestly....not much at this point. We're actually talking about shutting the SL park down....eventually Used to be the traffic but our traffic here nearly matches SL these days so it's more nostalgia keeping the SL park open

Lynnestra Parker: What is the name of the park in SL?

Stone Lunasea: Hopestone

Thirza Ember: do parks make money in sl? if you don't mind me asking

Stone Lunasea: haha no

Forest Azure: you wat to open one, Thirza?

Thirza Ember: I already have a freak show, Forest

Stone Lunasea: Back when there were a lot of parks on SL we did, at least half the tiers. But these days I might see $5 in tips on a good month.

Lynnestra Parker: I love amusement parks in virtual. I don't get sick on the rides. hehehe

Hope Lunasea: We have plenty here to ride, Lynnestra. :)

Stone Lunasea: same here, for me I started building rides after a car accident left me walking with a cane. I can't ride real ones anymore so I build them in VR

Stone Lunasea: First up, we'd like to present our Electrical Light Parade.   If everyone could kindly clear the Main Street & move onto the sidewalks that'd be great :)  It takes a couple minutes for the parades to reach this part of Main Street, but it syncs with the music best if we watch here in front of the theater.

Grid: Ladies & Gentlemen! Boys & Girls! MagicLand proudly presents our spectacular pageant of Night time Magic & Imagination! Please set your viewers to SHARED ENVIRONMENT, enable radio and prepare to be dazzled by the Mainstreet Electrical Light Parade!

Hope Lunasea: /me holds in excitement. :)

James Atlloud: OH wow.

Lynnestra Parker: How cool!!!

Dings Digital: woooooooot

Forest Azure: you are typing my back, James :)

James Atlloud: does it tickle?

Forest Azure: yes! /me will have sweet sweet revenge

Hope Lunasea: lol

Tosha Tyran: Joshua! You are safe now

Joshua 7: rofl

James Atlloud: So a fence for Safari... hmmm

 Stone Lunasea: The parade took over 6 years to develop, all of the floats and NPCs were built by Hope, then I scripted everything to move, and play nice. Getting the floats to not rear end each other was harder than you'd think!

Hope Lunasea: It's to be sure you don't get ran over by Goofy. We know how he can get. And yes. The floats were made by me.

James Atlloud: I see Mickey and Minnie!

Govega Sachertorte: great team Stone is a great scripter and mover and Hope is a great builder of things

Stone Lunasea: we make a good team :)

Stone Lunasea: Should be seeing the parade coming down Main Street now and make sure Parcel media is on. The Electrical Light Parade has always held a special place in my heart. Growing up in California, I was at Disneyland frequently as a kid but the parade was always at Midnight; by that time, my tiny butt was sound asleep in my stroller! I got to see it a couple of times but it became an almost obession - and the Magicland Electrical Light Parade was born! Now everyone, no matter where they are, can enjoy a touch of that ol' Disney magic!

Govega Sachertorte: love the mushies

Dings Digital: lol great jazz music

Nexus Storm: Nice !!!

Tosha Tyran: wow, it looks lovely, can I hitch a ride?

Stone Lunasea: no, but I like that idea

Hope Lunasea: Interesting fact: I've never seen the Electrical Light Parade in real life so all this was watching like at least five different videos on YouTube.

Not all the NPCs showed up for the parade, but we got the general idea.

Lynnestra Parker: Pete's dragon!!!

Stone Lunasea: We have the parade every Monday in between the weekly movies at intermission, so there's always a chance to see it again in it's full glory :)

Akila Mobian: That was really cool! :D

Uta Warbaum:  BRAVOOOO!!!

Stone Lunasea: it was a lot of fun to build

Stone Lunasea: We have a double feature every Monday starting at 2pm grid time

Govega Sachertorte: it's on our website schedule 

Lynnestra Parker: The music is terrific too!

Gemmalynn Sabine: very impressive

Stone Lunasea: Next up we'd like to bring y'all over to the Amusement Park where the tour will continue. I'll summon The Doctor here shortly who will transport us as a group. Once The Doctor tells you to, touch the T.A.R.D.I.S. to be included in the group teleport.

The Doctor: Give me just a few seconds to tidy up and we'll be on our way!

Lynnesta Prarker: Hello Doctor. Got any gummy babies?

Dings Digital: do you have a bus?

eva Nowicka: oh, i want that TARDIS

The Doctor: Course set for Amusement Park.  Waiting 60 seconds for additional riders.  Touch me now to join this teleport.

The TARDIS teleport wouldn't play with us, possibly we overwhelmed it, but there was an easy fix...

Stone Lunasea: We have a hover taxi waiting for us at the amusement park but I'm not sure if it can handle this many rides so we may be walking, we'll try it :)

Thirza Ember: it went without us... but unlike Xenon's bus, at least we're not crashing into a river

Star Ravenhurst: Her bus was crazy with a mind of its own. 

Govega Sachertorte: omg lol who hasn't done that a million times we have so many roads here... we found out the secret to sim crossings.  it doesn't require anything special either but it works. Anyone want to know I will share at our next Never Riders today at 2 pm

Hope Lunasea: If all else fails, you can open up your big Map and type in "Amusement Park" and just TP that way.

Taarna.Welles: ok

Stone Lunasea: Sorry for the glitches! Welcome to The Rabbit Hole, this is the original entrance to the Second Life park and was installed in Opensim due to popular demand. To begin, simply walk in and allow yourself to fall down the rabbit hole.

Stone Lunasea: Touch the potion on the counter if you get stuck. :)

Whirli Placebo takes a sip

White Rabbit: shouts:  Welcome to Wonderland! Start your adventure by going down the Rabbit Hole. If you get stuck, EAT something or DRINK something; and remember, the way forward is sometimes the way back.

Stone Lunasea: Ok, I think everyone's down here?  Welcome to the Amusement Park! Out on the river here, you'll see part of the Alice in Wonderland ride, a truly memorable experience! This region features more than 25 different rides and attractions, we don't have time to see them all today but we'll see a good amount of them - and you are always welcome to come back later!

Brad: whispers: Hold on to your prims, off we go!!

Brad the bus driver had a secret up his sleeve... it was a flying bus! Up we soared into the sky, too quick for my camera, but very impressive in person.

Star Ravenhurst: Are we moving and I don't realize it?

Whirli.Placebo: the show must go on

Dings Digital: yayyyy

James Atlloud: whaa? expectations challenged!!

Akila Mobian: That caught me off guard lol

Stone Lunasea: Our first stop is our Pirates of the Caribbean Ride, based off of the original ride at Disneyland, it boasts an exciting adventure where you will encounter pirates, have to evade the Royal Navy and survive the deadly Kraken! If that's too much action for you, we also have the Wild Rapids ride, a great way to cool off on those hot summer days!

Govega Sachertorte: a flying coach

Thirza Ember: and in a good way, this week

Whirli Placebo: ooohing and ahhing

Stone Lunasea: Our Video Rides have taken years to develop. Using specially encoded Point-of-View (POV) videos, we take you into a full immersion experience and transport you into the real world rides! Featuring rides such as Roger Rabbit's ToonTown, Harry Potter & The Escape from Gringott's, and The Simpsons, we have some of the most popular rides on the planet! If you're feeling nostalgic, you can take a trip with Captain EO which was discontinued from Disneyland in the early 1990s and even take a trip to Endor on Star Tours, your ticket to the stars!

James Atlloud: That was so cool!

Inside the Simpsons ride

Stone Lunasea: A special note about Star Tours, the video sequence we use is actually not from the real life ride itself! An absolutely brilliant YouTuber went through the old videos of the original ride, recreated every last detail in mesh, then filmed it in 3D. I've been doing this 20 years & I just thought someone had finally managed to upscale that grainy old 1980s footage to HD, but nope. It's truly a sight to see and an awesome application of 3D VR tech!

Whirli Placebo: amazing, Stone

Stone Lunasea

Stone Lunasea: There's more to see but in true Wonderland style, WE'RE LATE! Go figure. We'll go a head and wrap things up here, if everyone wants to jump off the Taxi :) If anyone has any questions or feedback, we're all ears. Hope you guys enjoyed the tour and let me know if you need a landmark to come back later!

Gemmalynn Sabine: thank you so much! That was amazing!

Thirza Ember: I love the bus, it  has restored my faith in mass transport... thanks so much everyone from neverworld and of course Stone and Hope most of all

Stone Lunasea: yeah Brad did pretty good considering I stretched his Taxi from a 4 seater to 20 LOL

Star Ravenhurst: We have been known to sit in each others laps!

Dabici Straulino: thanks, nice colourful tour

Tosha Tyran: for the place, for showing us, for the imaginative rides and all the fun

Dings Digital: yes, thank you so much, it is wonderful

Francisco Koolhoven: this was great, thank you!

Stone Lunasea: Thank you all so much for coming! This has been fun!

Govega Sachertorte: thank you for coming

Forest Azure: thanks a lot! that was real fun :)

HG Address: 

hg.neverworldgrid.com:8002:Magicland
hg.neverworldgrid.com:8002:Amusement Park

Cornflakes 2025 NW Style

It's Cornflakes Week in Opensim, and the HG Safari crew landed on Neverworld for the second hour of our tour, guests of Govega and all the NVW friends, on the brightly colored Cornflakes stage at Never Plaza, just as we did last year.  

Nexus Storm: Welcome to everyone from the Hypergrid Worlds !!!!

Before we get on to the Corny events of the day, just a quick word about hypergridding. If you have recently gotten the 'Avatars from your gird are not allowed' message on a bunch of grids, please don't assume that there is some sort of massive war going on. These are mostly mistakes - the opensim ecology appears to be suffering quite a lot recently, and often the system is messing up, and sending out false 'Not Allowed' messages. Please try again, or try a different avatar, or above all don't assume the worst  ...chances are, it's not the grid owner trying to offend or exclude you, it's just the intertubes getting stuffed up. 

For those who may not remember, Cornflakes Week (the last seven days in February each year) is a festival unique to opensim, not linked to any real world festival, nor a holdover from SL, but a reminder of simpler times in opensim when we were all much younger and so were our prims. Not every grid does it, and no two grids celebrate the same way; Osgrid has traditionally done a big party although with the current rush to save .oars and .iars, likely they will have other things on their minds. 

Neverworld's house band the King Trio were spinning the tunes for Cornflakes Week

Entertainment supplied by the King Trio who gave us a selection of Country music. 

For a lot of people, the name 'Cornflakes' probably only means the breakfast cereal, but it has much deeper roots in the history of opensim. Virtual platforms like Opensim are more and more being recognized as places with a population and its own particular customs, a sort of virtual civilization, and having our own traditions and legends that unite us, well, that is part of what makes our archipelago of grids unique. 

Safari in the Clouds

 Neverworld Grid was our second stop this week, we were there to experience the grid's unusual and exciting weekly event, the Never Riders Club, on Cloudburst Roads. 'Club' in the widest sense of the word - locals and hg visitors are all very welcome, the only qualifications are an ability to ride a bike, and the desire to have fun.

Meanwhile, the Safaristas had their own challenges...

Taarna Welles: Am I headless still?

Thirza Ember: I see white people

Taarna Welles: I see James.... with clothes! :)

James Atlloud: OH? I see fewer clothes here than Risa!  lol

Lynnestra Parker: ღ¸.•* LoL *•.¸ღ

Love to Verna

DJ, builder, landscape creator, loyal friend, photographer, and welcoming hostess at so many events, Verna Avril has been a valued friend and a familiar face in Opensim for a decade. Her long career of creativity in virtual worlds, going back to the days of Second Life.

 Here's a shot of her handiwork from 2012, on a sky platform on a SL sim called Sharks Cove. The environment she made here was called ' Dragon and Angel Palace' and Verna's love of fantasy comes through, all these years later... 

Verna's Dragon and Angel Palace

... but of course, SL could never be big enough for such a passionate builder! 

Verna landed in Osgrid back in 2012. She has accounts on several different grids, but Osgrid is home to most of her building projects. In 2022 she told me she had ten 4x4 regions, many of them rich environments, and several under construction. She's always been a big thinker - whether it's landscapes, roleplay, or having fun.

Right now, Verna is battling health issues, but even if she's not inworld, she is definitely not forgotten.

Lots of friends all send the same message - prayers, good wishes, and a reminder to stay strong! They include Jaime Wright, Mystic Moonlight, Ozzmosis Ozzy, DJ Purr, Hyacinth, Destiny, Dan, Quaesar Agnomen, Unadecal Masala, and Kylie Brimmer.

Event Plaza

Victoria Logan: Dear Verna, in each of your sessions as a DJ, I have been able to travel through my memories and enjoy your music. Excellent person always willing to help, I know this from my own experience. My hug is with you.

A Var Var Better Thing

Govega Sachertorte

We met on Little Willow Bay region, redolent of Jerry Garcia, whose art plays a pivotal role on  Neverworld Grid, famed for its many huge themed builds, often the destination of HG Safari trips, invoking everything from history to fantasy to TV shows and films, to the wide open spaces of the American continent. Govega, owner of Neverworld, explained a little of the background to the recent changes on the grid.

Govega Sachertorte: so you know last year we developed the roads sims, starting with cloudburst and shadowlands.. we were simply having so much fun that we decided to expand. We were having crashing issues and, turns out, all our var regions were different sizes, so Una said his OCD was crazy over that, and said we MUST have the SAME sizes for all var regions if they are attached

Thirza Ember:  he is one of many ocd people that can save your bacon

Govega Sachertorte: Yes! and that solved our problems. So once we started fixing the sizes, they all had to be 4x4s

Vets in Neverworld

 Tig Eberdene: If you wish, you can click the box by the sign here and receive a poppy to wear. Remembrance Day is one holiday that everyone should celebrate. I am a Canadian veteran so I very much agree

Beth Ghostraven: Remembrance Day is one holiday that everyone should celebrate ...maybe "celebrate" isn't the right word - I think I mean "honor)

For our first destination of the day, the HG Safari crew landed in neverworld to explore ways to remember those who have served in the Military, with two veterans, Tig and Troy. Though each served ina different country, and have independent regions on Neverworld, they have found unity of purpose in the way they'll celebrate on Monday the many lives dedicated to the various branches of the armed forces. The event will be posts on Opensimworld and Facebook, and the HG Address to get to Georgetown (and to Troy's aviation collection, on Painted Sky) you'll find at the end of the post, as always.

The commemoration area is right next to the forced landing spot on sim Georgetown

Tig Eberdene: As you arrive in Georgetown you can see we are set in autumn right now. The setting is to be as how it is in Real life Northern Ontario.  Georgetown is a special place, named for my father George Thomas Wilson. He was a WW2 veteran and my personal hero.  My aim in Georgetown is to make it feel like a real place. There are 3 2x2 sims here, which are all based off a combination of places I have been or lived in RL. This sim is the downtown area. The sim directly to the North is homes for anyone who wishes to live in Georgetown, as well as a small lake and Provincial Park.

Neverworld's Ninth

 Neverworld will be turning nine in a few days and there's a big party planned for October 22 - 25 over on a dedicated sim, NWBB9  

It's a chance for Gov and the guys and gals of this builder's paradise to celebrate another year of challenges and achievements.

Tony, Jerry, & Little Willow Bay

Here is a heads-up ... or should that be deadheads-up? ... hmmm ... good question. 

What isn't in question is the following news - tomorrow,  August 1st, at 5pm - 8 pm SLT, there will be a concert by Tony Saunders to mark what would have been Jerry Garcia's 82nd birthday, held on the sim Little Willow Bay, on Neverworld, with some very special architecture put together by some of  NWG's best known builders.

Govega Sachertorte: Mr. smokes and Nexus Storm built the sim and I added the art and art info. The pieces are a gift grant to the SCA who is collaborating with the foundation on this. They will be livestreaming the event, and so will we. 

Little Willow Bay region on Neverworld is a virtual take on RL Sausalito

The full address is at the end of the post, as always! 

Wait a minute, why is this event on this sim, you ask, and not the Jerry Garcia Tribute sim that we visited back in 2023? 

Safari's Wild Season

Little bit of pre-nostalgia on Safari yesterday, as we had our final meetup on the OSGrid region HG Safari. The sim was gifted by Ange Menges back in late 2021 to give the Safari a regular base (our sim on Francogrid was still in existence at that time, but the grid was in deep decline) and since then, it has been our life-off point for 160 trips around the hyperverse. The closure here marks the start of another adventure on the new HG Safari Grid, which will be our main base starting in the Fall. More about that in future posts.

Final meetup on HG Safari sim, OSGrid

Today's first destination was on Neverworld, another large and detailed build, with extra features! The full HG Address of Wild Kingdom is of course at the end of the post. 

lifted pixel: hello hello! sorry distracted how are all you lovely avatars today?

Taarna Welles: Hello sweet people.  :)

Star Ravenhurst: I am sad this is the last Safari for awhile

Thirza Ember: well there is so much happening in opensim, plenty to do always

Forest Azure: /me smiles... last one?

Thirza Ember: until September 4 when it all begins again... I hope you guys are ready to be eaten by dinosaurs today

lifted pixel: oh hell yeah

Tosha Tyran: if later he spits me out again - why not?

Thirza Ember: make sure you are wearing stain-resistant clothes

lifted pixel: i'll be sure to scotchguard my rings before we go

James atLLOUD: Hello - I just got home from work!  Barely made it.

lifted pixel: yay welcome james :D

Dangers await at the Wild Kingdom !

We jumped over to Neverworld Welcome, in a bid to make our arrival a bit easier on the servers. As time has gone by, avies have become more complex, so we take longer to load. But not that much longer...

Neverworld by Neverworlders

Never easy to get a group photo of the team that runs a grid, but somehow, Govega Sachertorte, owner of  Neverworld Grid  managed it - she's a bit of a wonder that way! I was curious to meet up with the team after seeing their latest promo video (it's at the end of this post, if you want to scroll right past the wordy bit). 

Here's the first 'class photo' of most of the Usual Suspects in charge of making the grid beautiful and helping residents get the best possible service. We were on a sim that the Safari will be visiting for our final trip of the season, ten days from now. The region is called Wild Kingdom and this seemed like the sweet spot to get their photo, in front of the ice cream van.

Left to right: Art Bell, Nine Zero, Joshua 7, Thom Invr,
Nexus Storm, Govega Sachertorte, Morgant Whelan.

So, why do people love the grid?
I asked around. Tig Eberdene has the lovely and recently refurbished Georgetown region. Birch Grove, Jamie Wright's region, is a must-visit on this grid.

Jamie Ann Wright:  I originally joined Neverworld in 2020 but it became my official grid home in 2021. The best features of the grid are too many to name but to summarise them I would say it’s a builder’s haven community of kindness with a high level of support by the Govega and grid admins. Everyone champions each other's projects and collaborates in a beautiful way that always makes it feel like home.

Tig Everdene: I've been here just shy of 3 years. The best features of Neverworld are the people and the amazing talents they have and share with everyone. The freedom I have to create as I wish. The grid staff and owner who do their best to keep everything running as well as possible, and support our residents.         

So the residents love the grid - what about the staff? Nosey, ain't I... well, let's see what some of them say.

In the Abyss

 James Atlloud: i am mes-mer-ized

Imagine a drowned city, old as time.  Here creatures of the sea play among the ruins, while above the water a series of monumental bridges link land masses, no more than islands now, where a scatter of fine buildings, architecture ancient and modern, can be visited - even danced in and shopped in.

Mr Smokes and Nexus Storm

 From a landing point among coral and shoals of fish, Nexus led the intrepid group who made it to Aqua Abyss through the main points of interest at quite a speed. 

Go Continental on Neverworld

Dawn is breaking over a new continent on Neverworld, and it might just be the answer to your dreams. 

The new continent is called Bountiful. 

If you don't know Neverland, it's a 7 year old grid with a solid tech, drama-free, HG Friendly reputation. The grid's motto 'Live, Love, Create' fits it perfectly. It's a mixed-use grid, with art installations, a fun Hunt region with worthwhile prizes, a lot of quality freebie shops, and plenty of residential areas too. 

Click here to get to the Neverworld Grid website.

Govega Sachertorte

The rental charges, if you want to get a region of your own, are reasonable, and there are self-hosting opportunities too. If you just want a bit of a sim to live on, then the prices are ... well, non existent!  

I asked Govega what she considers to be the secret of her success.

Govega Sachertorte: I'm nice! Just kidding... I am lucky to have a good team, we give out free land, and we don't micro manage people. We don't force events on them or rules. Or act like a pyramid scheme lol We are the no drama grid. This is the 4th or 5th time I've done a project with a massive themed area, and I am optimistic about the success.  It starts slow and before you know it, you are  turning people away.

To visit the new continent, you should jump over to

Neverworld Underground

 For the second hour of our tour, we went on an underground trip on Neverworld Grid.  Our visit today was to a very special build called The Caves. It was a great contrast to AI Austin's build, and here we saw another face fo the incredibly diverse possibilities of using Opensim as a way to reflect our lives and creativity.

Andron Rae

It's beautiful and poignant and also interesting from a technical/aesthetic reason, because we all know that cams and tunnels do not really go together. Yet Andron Rae has made it work here, and in the most magnificent way. 

Arcanquest looking old school

Some of us couldn't directly jump from Space City to The Caves, I noticed this glitch all week, something going on in the intertubes between OSGrid and NVW, so I had added in the LM Pack a second LM to the Neverworld landing area, and that seemed to work for everyone who was unable to Verify Identity when they tried the direct tp.  A special shoutout goes to all those who have been trying to make an effort to lessen lag by having much less complex avatars. Here is Arcanquest Frank is a heroically retro avie,  although I'm honestly not sure how much we help or hurt with all our efforts.  

Govega (center) with Joshua and Lucy

Neverworld Grid owner Govega was totally unafraid of lag, her avie had a complexity of over 400,000 and indeed the region seemed to shrug us off.  There was a brief moment of crisis when all 25 of us arrived on The Caves, to be greeted by Govega, Joshua 7, Alba Wyrril, and Oliver Grashnar (not to mention Franco Thirza who got jammed in the corner by some barrels of what she hoped was brandy and, on reflection, was probably gunpowder).
Andron has prepared a walkthrough of the build, which is available on Youtube here.

The build involves following a trail and reading the notecards, but it's not a hunt as much as a meditation on life and love and beauty and creativity, a stream of consciousness accompanying you on your journey. Wherever you see a glowing spark, there you will find a notecard. 

Val finds a bright spark *reading*

One of the coolest parts of the build, that you may miss if your volume is low, are the sound effects, like the splash when you fall off a bridge into a rock pool. The route is pretty easy to follow, though being a big group who wanted to stick together as much as possible, there was a fair bit of TPing - thankfully point-to-point TPs are enabled here, and that saved us all a great deal of frustration. 

Whirli (foreground) with l. Nara and r. Alan

The heart of the build is a sort of cavern - or is it open to the sky? I don't think I checked - where you will find an incredibly beautiful ring of singing stones, set in a glade full of soft green foliage. Nearby a beautiful statue nestles in a watery corner. It is captivating, and had us all standing quietly, just enjoying the place and the moment.  The build is dedicated to the memory of the late Pasha Theas, who was one of the earliest members of Neverworld, and the partner of Andron Rae. She was a talented builder and her creations can still be seen in many parts of the grid, including the Welcome Center.

Apollo Star admiring the statue among the ferns.

Thirza Ember: there is a gift at the end, if you do not find it, let me know, I will pass it to you, Andron wanted all to have it

Alan Scot: got a "Conclusion" notecard but no gift, what was the gift ?

James uses his head to display the gift from 'The Caves'

Oliver Grashnar: that's an interesting structure, so much up and down I didn't know fully where I was going

Lifted Pixel: I met a ghost dog

From left to right Aphra, Jeff, George, Oliver, Truelie, Loru, Kelso, Govega, Nara, Thirza, James.
Congrats to all those who survived to the very end! 

Dabici Straulino: very nice, I love the sound installation - fountain and crystal. Thank you for the visit, this is a great work

Kelso Uxlay: Nice sounds

James Atlloud: So great to have audio effects in the experience!

George Equus: Very impressive build!

HG Address: 

A Quick Bit of Luster

 Our first stop of three this week on Safari - lil bit of lag, it can't be denied, but fun nonetheless. That's one of the advantages of multiple destinations each time. If one place has issues, or maybe isn't to your taste, another will be fine. 

Plenty of tasteful stuff on Neverworld though...

Neverworld Welcome 

Our first stop, however, was set to be on Neverworld grid, founded by Govega Sachertorte. We were invited by Locked Semaphore, and Pasha Theas was also there to welcome us to what was due to be a whistlestop tour of six different regions. Yes, I know what you're thinking, very ambitious...

           Neverworld is a grid of about three hundred regions, with about 200 in traffic monthly, between residents and visitors (pretty nice numbers) and the six regions being showcased were well chosen t demonstrate the range of activities available, from the airport, Banning International (great name) to the dark labyrinth of Ludicus...

Ludicus

..... to the romance of Luster, and so on. 

Here on Neverworld you will find fashion, freebies, rentals, sailing, and social events, as well as free parcels if you just want to try the grid out.  My favorite part in all of it is the Greeter, with his corny Pirate jokes. Unmissable.

Neverworld Greeter

There was something happening with teleports however right when we all tried to go there (an hour later, of course, teleporting was fine, that's just the way opensim works out sometimes) so our tour didn't go quite as expected. Better luck for sure on our next visit.

Check out the next post for our continued trip...

Luster