L33T3r Then You

Stuck.

2006-11-12T17:49:00.000-08:00

It had been a stressful day, seeing my ex-girlfriend hooking up with a gun wielding physco path (whose name begins with a D and ends with a K =P). So naturally, looking for a productive activity to unload my stress into, I indulged myself in my nOObish desires in the battle sims. After a solid two hours of running and gunning I logged off to eat dinner. Having eaten a delicious meal of steak and fries I lazily strolled back down to my computer and eagerly logged back on.

I was promptly shot.

The oh so familiar black loading screen appeared and I sighed as I waited for it to disappear, revealing my quaint little home on the bay. But to my dismay when I landed, I was greeted by the bleak box filled battlefield I had just left. My initial reaction: "OMfG!Ng WTf?!?!?!?! This i$Nt mY HoUSe!!!!11oneone!!1"

I then proceeded to discharge my weapon angrily into the ground.

Upon regaining control of myself, I opened up the ever so handy map and teleported home. Once more I was brought to the black loading, screen and once more I landed in the sh!thole I intended to get out of. I tried to teleport home once more, but to no avail. Then, after a frantic sending out of tp requests to everyone I knew, I sighed and realized I was stuck.

Stuck: caught or fixed; "stuck in the mud." How aptly that described my situation.

As I paced back and force thinking of some way to get out of the desolate bullet-filled place my pixels current inhabited, I was confronted by two rather ugly thuggish looking fellows, both wielding the infamous 10k. For those of you not familiar with weaponry in TSL, the 10k is a rapid fire rifle with multiple bullet types and rates of fire. On top of that its got a outrageously quick rate of fire, making it the AK47 of the Teen Grid. Their names were Ace and Sor. I was stuck inside a trailer I had been using for cover and thus had no escape, so nervously I mumbled "Whats up guys? heh..."
"Can u tp out of here?" Ace replied, nudging me slightly with the butt of his gun. "Unfortunately, no." I said, slowly sliding in the direction of the door. "Ah alright. Might as well come with us then" He said. I followed the two goons not entirely sure what to expect. "Whats the worst they can do?" I thought to myself as I tagged along after them. They led me out to the far corner of the sim, about 40 meters above the battlefield. The height gave the place a commanding view of the surrounding area, which would come in handy later. The building itself was simple, just a one room prefab home surrounded by a series of walkways floating in the air. Every 10 meters or so there laid an automated turret ready at a moments notice to fend off any would-be attackers. All in all, the place was a solidly built makeshift fort. I was led down the walkways to the main one room building which was barricaded in every way imaginable. On the inside the place looked more like the room of a phsycotic 8 year old then a military base. It was filled with bean bag chairs, disco balls, and a great deal of TVs (none of which worked.)

Just as Ace closed the 2 meter thick door blocking off the building from the outside, bullets pinged against the walls. "Oh shit." he mumbled, all the while peaking out the nearby window. "Theres about 5 out there, 1 RPG and some 1k's, get em." He said to Sor as the room began to fill with smoke. Switching the safety off of his gun, Sor charged out the door narrowly dodging the wall of lead which was promptly laid down by the invaders. He ran down the walkways, setting up the automated turrets as he went, and by the time he reached the end the turrets were steadily blasting away the mob which hovered outside our base. With them out of the way, Ace pulled out a chess set, and we settled down by the fireplace and played, all the while listening to the light pings and pangs of bullets riddling the outer walls.

Land Prices...

2006-11-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

I think I'm speaking for everyone when I say: What. The. @#$*.

As I'm writing this, the average cost of a 512m sq. plot in the city costs 3,500L$. By MG standards that's just another drop in the pot. But look at it this way: the average TG resident has under 1,000L$. When I bought my first plot of land in the city on the Teen Grid, it only cost me 512L$ for 512m, 1L$/m. Now Land Barons are selling for as much as 6-8L$ per square meter.

Today's word is extortion (ex-tore-shun) can you say extortion kids?

Whats been bothering me is that land barons don't really provide a worthwhile service, and yet they are making more money then anyone else in Second Life. They force themselves into our economy by buying up entire sims worth of land as it becomes available, thus preventing anyone else from buying it at the regular 1L$/m. Then once they have all the land, they're free to charge whatever they want for it. When I asked one prominent land baron why they charged so much, he/she claimed that they needed all the money they could get to cover there huge tier fees. Maybe I'm the only person who thinks this is a good idea but: why not just boycott land baron land. If people don't buy there stuff, there forced to pay tier for it longer, and they wont have the money coming in to buy new land to sell. So therefore, we could effectively put them out of business.

Bottom line: when you buy land from a baron, your helping to increase land prices for everyone.

So hey, give it a shot maybe? 1L$/meter sure does sound nice.

How Did This Happen? Part One

2006-11-11T16:38:00.000-08:00

Either way, I'm here now doin' what I do best: tellin' stories.

I arrived on this tiny wooden box-ridden stack of pixels we call the teen grid two summers ago with high hopes and a modest 20 grand. Expecting the worst I set out on what would quickly become a noteworthy journey. Everything looked the same was it had back on the Main Grid. As a matter of fact, upon arriving in the welcome area I took some time to wander around the Linden-made builds. It brought back some memories from a year earlier when I first stepped into Second Life, not entirely sure about what I was doing.

My first thought? "How did this happen?" followed by: "What am I getting myself into? Look at all these n00bs!" Having come from the Main Grid I naturally felt superior to all these silly TGers who hadn't been playing as long me.

But still. I was lonely.

Not a familiar face in the mob of emo-fied newbie avatars. I set off to find out what this place was all about, and I was soon up to my neck in nostalgia. I flew the length of the entire grid in less then 15 minutes, and having seen everything there was to see, landed at the very end of the world, Bull. Looking out at the never ending blue abyss I noticed what seemed to be a big floating raft. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a store floating on a number of wooden planks haphazardly tethered together. I stood there for awhile, not entirely sure what to do, when I was greeted by the owner, Neco Rocco.

Surprisingly, I had known Neco from a year prior. He had been a fellow sandbox bum during my formative building year, and we recognized each other immediately. Apparently he had been discovered to be under 18 on the Main Grid like myself. We quickly traded cards and sat down to talk. It had been months since we had last spoken with one another, and I had never been particularly fond of him, but he welcomed me nonetheless.

Things were looking up.

My First Post!

2006-11-11T16:09:00.000-08:00

Well well well. My first post. alright.

I'm looking forward to this. I'm not entirely sure what the goal of my little slice of internet realestate is, but as I've come to understand: these kinds of things take on a mind of their own.

So be it.

Seeing as this is the first post of my first blog allow me to tell you a wee-bit about myself:

I have been playing Second Life for nearly 3 years now, and I've savored every second of it. I'm only 16, I play on the Teen Grid. Which is certainly different from the Adult Grid, but by no means worse. I'm opposed to land baroning, and the idea of linden favoritism, which in many cases runs rampantly on the TG. As I was saying though, I've been playing for nearly three years and i've been building since I set foot in the welcome area. To me its always been like Legos, and although it took me nearly a year to make anything half decent I think I've gotten good. I've dabbled in texturing as well, but to no avail. I'm simply not a math kind of guy, so scripting is simply out of the question.

Alright then. =)