Second Life Sketches: Back From The Dead
By Warren Ellis
Another long pause between columns, I know. Real life and work takes priority over Second Life. Especially when one in two login attempts fail. Which means I get in for fifteen minutes every day or two to play a bit of I Am Legend. Even with the lag issues and the strictures they’ve had to put on the game to defeat cheating, it’s too much fun. I’ve been playing as a zombie Darkseeker for the last month. When I now announce my entrance into the game area, I am met with expletives from the people playing uninfected humans.
[15:27] IAL Admin: I know you’re playing so just read this whenever - but I saw you leap into a group of humans, pick one off and leap off into the shadows before the rest of the group realized it and it’s possibly one of the best things Ive ever seen[15:30] Me: With humans outnumbering infected so badly, I feel it’s my duty to give people something to do…
[15:31] IAL Admin: That was seriously amazing; the best part is one of the people in the group is on Voice — when you were stalking outside the (human safehouse) I heard him audibly gasp and go “THEYRE COMING INNNN OMIGAWDOMIGAWD” and run out the back door
Carnage Island has made its much-delayed return as Major League Combat. As old CI users would expect, the design of the combat sim is superb. However, it costs L$350 to buy the HUD to use the place, and outside weapons won’t work — you have to spend an additional L$200 to buy all the sim weapons. The focus seems to be on organised combat, team-driven games. Which, I would guess, is why the place has been completely empty whenever I’ve visited. It’s too early to consider MLC simply doomed, but I think it’s safe to assume that MLC isn’t going to be more than a niche project. If you visit and no-one’s around, drop out of the back door, fall 350 meters to the sim proper, and have a look around. It’s an excellent build. And, somehow, I think it might not be around too long.
One of the Wastelands crew pointed me at another interesting build — Cellar. I guess a team from the Wastelands had been poking around it, and didn’t know what it was for. An astonishingly bleak place, Cellar is two sparsely-built sims, Cellar itself and an adjoining region called Cellar Proper — a couple of wooden buildings, some dumpsters, a generator and a huge abandoned school building. The detail and construction is superb. It takes five minutes of exploring the extensive basement levels, though, before you find the sex stuff. Cellar turns out to be the most miserable, most skilfully and imaginatively constructed BDSM sim I’ve seen in ages. Which, obviously, isn’t particularly a recommendation, but the builder pulls off that bleakness incredibly well. Personally, I decided to explore the place using the most apt vehicle in my inventory — a shattered old Trabant that Vivienne Graves gave me the other day.
I find in my inworld notes that I was mapjumping about a month ago, and fell on a place called Menithos. My notes read:
“I’ve jumped in at random, just picking a point on the map and teleporting. I’m in… a cave, maybe? Black rock. Lava flows. The parcel notes say “~City of Darkness-Roleplay - Vamp, Lichen, Demon and Dragon - New authored storyline, come visit to find out more on this RP adventure kingdom. Market, Rentals more.” No-one’s coming towards me, which is a good sign — the nearest paints on minimap radar are a good quarter-sim away and motionless. Twisting around and spinning the camera out, I find that I’m under a house — I can see starlight through a gap in the prims that should be sealing this area. Picking my way down further — a river of fire, skeletons hanging in chains, great spears of dark rock… and, finally, an entire underground castle. With a security system threatening to eject me within seconds of my entering. I could defeat the security system, but someone’s now coming to see what the alarm was about, so I’m jumping — ”
Missing Mile has moved, to Soap. I’m also wondering if it’s not now part of a network of post-apocalyptic sims, as, on exploring a new post-apoc region called Felonhall City, I find a “tunnel” that provides a teleport to Missing Mile. Felonhall, like Missing Mile, has an optional roleplay component, and I think it also offers DCS2 combat. This means that the place is not a shoot-’em-up, but that meaningful combat can issue from roleplay. I’m no good at DCS2 combat — I once got murdered in about ten seconds after urinating on a sleeping avatar in Toxian City.
Finally, something that’s not suffused with the stench of burning flesh and corpses rotting in oil-slicked ditchwater: La Reve, a stunningly strange and beautiful art sim, decorated with wonderful sculptures and arrangements. A palate cleanser, then - a Unicorn Chaser for Second Life.
