Lionheart Times - September 19, 2010
Lionheart Times Your Community. Your News.
OKTOBERFEST COMING! Howdy Neighbor Day leads to plans for Oktoberfest events By Mistletoe Ethaniel PUMBAA - During Lionheart’s monthly Howdy Neighbor Day, an informal meeting at which Lionheart residents hang out and get to know each other, plans have begun for an Oktoberfest celebration. Oktoberfest in RL is a 16- to 18- day long festival held in
the German city of Munich. It was begun in 1810 to celebrate a Royal marriage, and has been an annual tradition since then. It its 200-year history, Oktoberfest has been cancelled 24 times due to war, disease, or other emergencies. The Lionheart version of Oktoberfest is still very much in its planning stages, with no date available yet at time of printing. However the residents of Lionheart are very excited about the possibilities. “Lionheart Events are usualy very well planed and make a lot of fun,” writes local shopkeeper Miyo Darcy in her blog, “ So be prepared for the Oktoberfest soon.” Local businesses are likely to gear up for the festivities in their own way. Chamber of Commerce Chairperson Clover Windlow suggests that shops should come up with some new products, specials, and promotions geared around the Oktoberfest theme. More information regarding Oktoberfest plans will be made available here in the Times (and at our new blog, http://sllionhearttimes.wordpress.com) as they become known.
Halloween, Winter Carnival Plans Also In Progress SIMBA - Oktoberfest isn’t the only celebration planned in Lionheart; festivites for Halloween and a December Winter Carnival are also being planned for our 15-sim city, promising an exciting and fun fall and winter for residents and businesses. In an informal meeting of Lionheart admins and businesspeople taking place at a coffee shop in Simba, ideas were discussed for the Winter Carnival, including skating, sleigh rides, skiing, and snowmobile races. One certain plan is a city-wide winter-themed hunt, spearheaded by Chamber member, Senior Mentor, and bunny farmer Sookie Slafford. Businesses wishing to participate are reminded to contact Slafford to let her know. Slafford’s Jolly Farm, meanwhile, is gearing up for autumn with new spooky decor. While citywide plans for Halloween/Harvest festivities remain vague, it is known that at least some sort of activities are planned. Local businesses that aren’t already in the Chamber of Commerce may wish to join, as Chamber businesses are given free advertising in event programs and priority listing in events such as hunts.
ARR, Mateys! It be Talk Like A Pirate Day by Mistletoe Ethaniel September 19th marks the eighth year of Internation al Talk Like a Pirate Day, a day marked by Netizens worldwide. Say founders Mark Summers and John Baur at the official website: “n the eight years since Dave Barry mentioned us in his nationally syndicated newspaper column, what once was a goofy idea celebrated by a handful of friends has turned into an international phenomenon that shows no sign of letting up.” According to Summers, International Talk Like a Pirate Day is the only known holiday to be the result of a sports injury. When playing a game of raquetball, a friend was hit by the ball and reacted by shouting “ARRR!”, and the idea was born. Originally it would have been celebrated on June 6th, but
The Lionheart Times publishes regular editions every Sunday, with occasional Extra issues in between. We're not an official publication of the estate ownership/management of the Lionheart sims; we're a privately owned and community-maintained publication. Therefore views expressed by the Times or its authors are not to be construed as the official views of Dirk Klees, owner of the Lionheart sims, or of any of the estate management. Visit the Lionheart Times building in Lionheart Sarafina any time or email us at sllionhearttimes@gmail.com .
out of respect for D-Day, it was moved to the date of Summers’ ex-wife’s birthday. In 2002, Summers and Baur sent a letter about their holiday to syndicated columnist Dave Barry, and from there it gained nationwide attention. Talk Like a Pirate Day is also celebrated by “Pastafarians”, or followers of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Pastafarians believe that Global Warming is caused by a decrease in the number of pirates in the world, and thus hold Pirates in high regard. Much of the pirate talk is based on the speech of actor Robert Newton, a Cornwall native who played Long John Silver in two films and Blackbeard in another; it is his movie-pirate accent that is often mimicked on Talk Like a Pirate Day.
There really WAS a Dread Pirate Roberts! The flag of Captain Bartholomew Roberts, better known as Black Bart, a Welshman who ravaged the seas in the late 17th/early 18th centuries (graphic: Wikimedia Commons)
The Finest Form of Flattery? SL Forums poster draws heavily from Lionheart postings by Mistletoe Ethaniel Lionheart Estate owner Dirk Klees was surprised when he looked on the SL Blogs over the weekend to see a handful of posts that looked almost exactly like his own postings for Lionheart real estate listings. One reads “Without Premium Membership”; one reads “No ‘PrePlease see Copycat, next page
CONTENTS Event Listings................2 SL Tech .............................2 Business................3 Op/Ed.....................4 Classifieds.............6 Tr a v e l . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Features...............6
Lionheart Times - September 19, 2010 - Page 2
Copycat Cont. from Page 1 mium Membership”; one reads “No ‘Premium’ Second Life Membership Required”. Both go on to read “Save $9.95 USD per month! [Our brand] is a private [provider/company] and we’re billing independently of Linden Lab.” The following list items continue to be almost identical: “24 hour support”, “Flexible payment options”, “No ugly rent boxes”, and so on. Even the table style listing of available properties is nearly the same. And while one may argue that mimicking one’s formatting, while tacky, doesn’t necessarily constitute content theft, there is no mistaking the glaring similarities.
In Lionheart This Week: Friday, Sept 24: 3PM - Open Mic @ Lion’s Poetry Club
Saturday, Sept 25:
“We must be doing something right,” Klees says via Twitter, but also doesn’t hesitate to call the listing from OT Rentals (which says it is one year younger than Lionheart) “shameless” and a “CopyCat”.
1PM - Lionheart Town Meeting in Pumbaa
Town Hall Meeting - September 25th, 1PM SLT
Visit website for details CLICK HERE
Be sure to join your fellow Lionheart residents on September 25th (Saturday) at 1PM SLT for an hour long Town Hall Meeting. This is your chance to learn what events are coming to Lionheart, see what the Big Lion has in the works for our city, and of course to meet and catch up with your Lionheart neighbors. The meeting will be held its usual location in Lionheart Pumbaa, at the auditorium.
Event listings are FREE in the Lionheart Times. Send us your info today!
Tylendel Falconer distance (along with particles and other settings), either with an extra
SL Tech
Avoiding Lag Minimizing lag in a virtual world requires an understanding of what actually causes lag. There is no simple answer to this, rather, there are numerous reasons you could be lagging. Many of these reasons are beyond a user's control. Second Life is a complex technical environment. It is the complexity that increases the likelihood of something going wrong, however. When thinking about lag in Second Life, there are two main causes. Simulator (sim) lag, and client lag. Sim lag happens, obviously, on the sim. Usually, sim lag is caused by an excess of resource use. Too many scripts, a large party with many dancing avatars, a great many moving objects, these are just a few of the reasons a sim could be overworked. As a general rule, there is nothing the average user can do about sim lag, besides teleport away. It is important though to know if it actually is sim lag you are experiencing, and not some other cause. Clicking an object with a menu is a good way to tell. If the menu pops right up, the sim is most likely fine. If it takes a long time, you may be looking at sim lag. If you are suffering from client lag as well, it can bring things to a virtual standstill. Lag is a fact of (Second) Life. If you minimize the lag on your client (viewer), however, you may be surprised at how much lag goes away. Some of the major causes of client lag: PARTICLES Yes, particles are a viewer-side cause of lag. Second Life sims have almost nothing to do with generating particles. They simply send the information to your viewer (a few bits of information), and your viewer does the rest. Particles cause no sim lag. If you are lagging when particles appear, you need to turn down your particle settings, in the viewer preferences. The setting is for the maximum number of particles shown at one time. Don't worry about missing particles. You want the maximum number of particles in your settings to be something your computer can handle. If there are only a few particles around, you won't be missing them anyway. Dragging the slider all the way down to 0 will disable particles entirely.
menu by the media controls, or through commands in the chat box. Don't be afraid to take it down to 64m if you're at a party and not looking at scenic landscape views, you're not missing anything. If you are in a pretty area, and don't plan on moving yourself or your camera very much, that is the time to increase that draw distance. BE PATIENT Allow places to rez before moving around. There is a lot of behindthe-scenes work going on while an area is loading. Information on shape, size, and location of objects around you is being acquired, and textures are being downloaded. This is taking a good amount of your computer's resources, and adding to that moving around, could slow it down. UPGRADE YOUR HARDWARE At some point, you may have to admit: Your poor old computer just may not be able to handle Second Life anymore. The viewer is in constant development, and new features are added all the time. Eventually, a computer that may have run the viewer just fine 3 years ago just can't hack it anymore. You don't necessarily have to up and replace the whole thing (of course, who doesn't like a shiny new computer), but that can be expensive. It is unlikely you will be able to upgrade the processor, those are usually tied pretty specifically to system boards. There are a couple of simple and relatively inexpensive upgrades however. Upgrade your memory. Memory (RAM) is the computer's work area. Second Life is very memory intensive. Once you fill up your memory, your computer will start using “virtual memory” by “swapping” to the hard drive. Hard drives are far slower than ram, and this can slow you down to a crawl. Plenty of memory is important, especially if you want to use other programs along with Second Life. Upgrade your video card. Once your video card is being used to its maximum, your computer will begin using normal system resources for graphics. This, of course, takes those resources away from the actual programs being run. A good video card with 512mb of video memory, and a good GPU, takes the load off of the rest of the system, everyone does their job and doesn't have to help anyone else. CLOSE OTHER PROGRAMS
DRAW DISTANCE This is your main weapon against lag. Different areas in-world have vastly different landscapes. A simple, flat, empty sim is very easy on your graphics card. Head over to a double-prim city sim (as we have on Lionheart), and you could easily grind to a halt. This is because every prim (not just objects, but every single prim), requires some resources for your computer to display them. The further your draw distance is set, the more prims your computer is trying to display. Add to that the textures on every face of every prim, and you are probably using more of your display hardware than you thought you were. Draw distance should be considered a dynamic setting, do not set it and forget it. Many third-party viewers make it very easy to change your draw
Other programs take up resources too. If possible, use the web browser within the SL viewer so you don't have to open a separate one. Switch to a multi-protocol messenger (like Pidgin), so you can cut down on the number of IM programs running. Most importantly, be sure that when you slow to a crawl, it is not your anti-virus performing an automatic scan. It pays to know with lag. Many complain about it, but do not realize that their lag is from their computer. Ask around, if no one else is experiencing any lag, it could be your computer or your internet connection.
Business Why Customers Leave Your Shop in the First Two Minutes by Clover Windlow “If you build it, they will come” is– as most business owners in SL have figured out– a myth. It’s not enough to have a good product and put it out there; you have to get people to come in and see it. But how do you get them to stay long enough to possibly buy that product? A discussion on the SL blogs asks, “What makes you leave a store in the first 2 minutes?” It’s an eye-opening look at the things that you may think are cool and shiny and useful, but your customers do not. 10. NO Refunds, NO Exchanges, NO I don’t want to deal with you. While it’s important to make your rules/terms of service clear (for example, just because your textures are full perm, doesn’t mean other people get the right to resell them) it’s a fine line between being clear and making your customers feel like you don’t trust them. One or two signs is more than enough. Making a sign right as you first walk in, spelling out all the things you will not do (or for that matter, putting it prominently in your profile) will turn a lot of potential customers off. Don’t be too unapproachable. 9. Can I help you? How about now? Now? Maybe now? While you don’t want to be unapproachable, you also don’t want to be in your customers’ faces. If you’re busy with something in your shop and a customer comes in, let them know you’re there if they need anything, then just leave them alone and let them shop. If they want to chat with you, they’ll start the conversation. And when you greet your customer coming in and let them know you’re there if they have a question, do so in local chat. Many people consider unsolicited IMs intrusive. Be available, but not too pushy. 8. FREE* Customers have strong opinions regarding freebies. Most seem to agree, however, that reselling someone else’s freebies is tacky at best. Any misrepresentation regarding freebies is an apparent turnoff to customers, in fact. If you offer freebies, how you do so makes an impression on your shop. And don’t mistake that to mean that your freebies are nothing more than an advertisement for your shop; apparently customers aren’t keen on that either. 7. What do you MEAN I can’t fly here?! You may want people to walk slowly past your displays, figuring if they get a longer look, they’ll be tempted to buy them, right? Wrong. If you have a large shop, or one with multiple levels, people don’t want to walk slowly. They want to find what they’re looking for, get to it quickly, and get it. If they can’t, they don’t get it (or anything else). It’s especially frustrating to would-be customers if they get teleported somewhere far from the store itself (such as to the center of a mall, a club, or a RP-specific designated area). People didn’t TP here to see your mall, your club, or to RP. They came to find and get a product; and if they have to walk just to find the shop where it is, they will lose patience and leave. So, if you’re renting, find out about telehubs and such, and if flight is enabled. 6. One arm, one leg, and your firstborn child. Pricing is a tricky thing. You want to make enough to make ends meet, after all. You put a lot of time and effort into your product (right?!). But at the same time, there’s a point at which a price becomes entirely too high for people to want to pay it. That doesn’t mean that shoppers in SL are cheapskates; it means that they, like consumers in RL, want to be certain that they’re getting what they pay for. If your product costs 150% more than the “average” price, what makes yours at least one-and-ahalf times better than the rest? Have real, concrete answers to that question.
Lionheart Times - September 19, 2010 - Page 3
ure if their traffic is high, they’ll be higher on the Search listing, therefore more people will come to their shop. What they don’t realize, however, is that this tactic is less effective than they thought, and may even be counter-productive. Customers are often uncomfortable in shops that have these silent “minions” at their employ, and will just leave. I’ve said it before, I’m of the belief that campers don’t work as a business tool anyway. People come, take your money, and scare away the people who might have given you some. Is your traffic rating really that important to you? 3. Oh look, grey stuff. And over here… more grey stuff. You might have the most gorgeous, well-laid-out, perfect store: a work of art, as much as a work of practicality. But, people couldn’t see that, because the textures took too long to rez, and so they left. For your vendors, you don’t need anything larger than 256×256 pixels at 72dpi. Anything larger is extra time to load, which equals time being wasted. And if it’s true that time is indeed money, well, you’re wasting both. 2. One word: LAG. Sometimes this is within the shopkeeper’s control; sometimes it is not. The customer doesn’t care. If a place is so bogged down with lag that they can’t walk anywhere, can they at least cam around and look at stuff easily? 1. One more word: SPAM. This is the single worst thing you can do to a potential customer, according to the consensus at the SL blogs. Surely you’ve experienced it: you TP into a place, and within 10 seconds you get 3 blue popup windows, plus an IM from a bot, plus a LM, plus a notecard, plus an auto-invite to a group you didn’t ask for (yes I’m still on that, because it’s such an abysmally bad idea), plus some random free gift, plus some outdated CopyBot protector chat spam, plus 5 lucky chairs (which haven’t even rezzed yet) announcing new letters, plus a following shop “assistant” on your ass… it’s not just overwhelming, it’s extremely off-putting. If you must give out a notecard right away, use a script that remembers who already received one so that they don’t get bombarded every time they come back. The same is true of LMs; though there’s no reason you can’t just have a clickable LM giver visible nearby. Do NOT–I can not repeat this enough–auto-invite people to your group. You don’t like getting added to mailing lists without your consent in RL, right? Why should anybody like it in SL? Get rid of unnecessary greeters (and chatterbots. OMG I made that mistake for all of 12 hours). Get rid of the arbitrary profile picture on the wall, the sparkly particles whenever someone TPs in, the obsolete CopyBot protector, the cat or dog or faery or robot that greets customers at the door, the lengthy paragraph of unsolicited rules and information. It’s not helping your customers, and it’s hurting you. You really have to check your own ego at the door and look objectively at what is useful to customers, and what you’re just holding onto because you personally think it’s a cool idea. Honorable Mentions: One thing, shopkeepers have control over; the other, less so: tip jars, and obnoxious fellow customers. Unless you’re selling a tip jar you made and have one on display, most customers agree that it looks like begging. Obnoxious fellow customers are something you don’t have as much control over; however, you can at least make sure your list of rules against obnoxious behavior doesn’t itself become even more obnoxious.
LindeX Week
5. What is this exactly? In SL, you get one chance to make an impression on your customers about your product: what it is, what its permissions are, how much it costs, how many prims it has, etc. Your display has to make these answers clear right away to your customers. You don’t want to crowd too much text onto your display, however, or people won’t have the patience to zoom their camera in to read it. You could always have something that gives a notecard when a customer wants more information on the product. If you have the primmage and space available, you could put out a display model for people to test out. None of these will matter, however, if people can’t find your product. If your shop is haphazardly thrown together, hard to navigate, or just otherwise ugly, it gives customers the idea that your product(s) must be the same as well. 4. Welcome to Zombieland. Shops will sometimes employ bots, campers, and/or “models” to drive up their traffic numbers. They fig-
A lower exchange rate is a great time to BUY lindens, because you get more for your $!
Contact us anytime: SLLionheartTimes@gmail.com
Lionheart Times - September 19, 2010 - Page 4
We want to hear what you think. Drop your Letters to the Editor off at the Times Building, send them via notecard directly to Clover Windlow, or email them to SLLionhearttimes@gmail.com Not every letter will be published; Editor reserves the right to refuse to publish any letter received. Letters may be edited for spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Your letter is most likely to be published if it is concise, makes an original point, and is in quick response to a timely story. Be sure to include your SL name in the paper, and Lionheart neighborhood of residence or work. Opinions expressed in the Op/Ed section are those of their respective authors, and are not necessarily reflective of those of the Lionheart Times.
Opinion/Editorial Talking Tummies Need to talk MORE, I say!!
Something feels good inside your heart as you feel the baby are [sic] moving once again. You can’t wait to see this precious baby!! I don’t know if you already know my feelings on the talking pregnancy belly or not. Let’s talk about them shall we? I think the pregnancy bellies in SL gloss over the realities of pregnancy, “talking” about the good and cute parts of it only. I propose that if you’re going to annoy everyone in chat range with a blow-by-blow account of your pretend pregnancy, it should be a more realistic, accurate portrayal.
◆Your bladder is telling you once again that you’ve got about 10 seconds to find a bathroom! 10… 9… 8… ◆Whoops, looks like your breasts have leaked some more. What’s that, your third sweater today? Hope it’s not dry-clean only… ◆Your back is killing you, and you’d LOVE to sit down and rest. ‘Course your hemhorrhoids say to hell with that!
Maybe if the talking tummies would cover these slightly less cute (but certainly very authentic) moments as well as the cutesy cravings and kicking and such, folks would be a bit more reluctant to wear them. Hey, you want to pretend to experience pregnancy? I say, really get the full nine yards out of the experience.--Clo
We asked our readers...
Advertising Rates Classified ad: Up to 20 words + SLURL L$50/wk/ad
Full Page (10"x16") ad L$750/wk/ad (Lionheart) L$1000/wk/ad (out of town)
Image ads with link included:
Ads & Payment for ads due by FRIDAY for following SUNDAY edition Any EXTRA edition will also have ad (no additional charge). Ad payment can be made in multiple week blocks if desired.
2"x3" ad L$100/wk/ad FREE with contribution (excludes club event listings, letters to the editor) 5"x7"ad L$200/wk/ad for Lionheart based business L$250/wk/ad for out-of-town based business Half-page (10"wide x 7" high) ad L$500/wk/ad (Lionheart) L$750/wk/ad (out of town)
◆You can’t remember the last time your boobs were this sore. You can’t wait to have this ^*$#^@* precious baby!!! ◆Your libido is through the damn roof. Any male avatar within 10m of you had better watch out. You just can’t function until you hop onto some naughty poseballs!! ◆God, you feel like you’re retaining the entire tank at Sea World. How can someone who pees so often hold so much water?! ◆Oh, there’s that warm feeling in your undies again. You wonder if it’s spotting or just more incontinence. ◆Your face has broken out in a gazillion zits. Gotta love them hormonal changes! ◆You should drink plenty of water because boy are you feeling constipated!!!
Ad must fit the aforementioned size guidelines, and can be color or black/white (same rate, since it's digital not printed). For best results, we recommend resolution of 150 or greater dpi, but not required. The Lionheart Times reserves the right to refuse to print advertisements that are in violation of Lionheart's Covenant or SL ToS.
are all considered image make sure it's 2" wide by 3" your work. If we want to Lionheart Times use a submission (say, a Submission Guidelines Acceptible formats include submissions. These may be high). EVENT LISTINGS Either provide a written calendar of your establishment's events (see Written submissions, below) or a URL to an online calendar. If your schedule is the same every week, tell Clover (IM is fine; IMs go to email so it will be received). WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS Written submissions should be about 300-500 words in length (dependent on content; event listings will naturally be shorter). More in-depth articles may be longer, but in the interest of space, they may end up broken up into separate parts.
notecard (either sent directly to Clover or dropped into the submission box in the lobby at the Times), email (sent to SLLionheartTimes@gmail.com), or document uploaded to Google Docs (be sure to tell Clover the URL!). If your contribution includes photos, it is suggested you use either of the latter two methods, so as to save you the cost of uploading the photos.
Notecards can be set to No Trans or No Mod, if you prefer. There is no required set of permissions for written submissions.
given directly to Clover BUT it is recommended you use the email (SLLionheartTimes@gmail.com) or Google Doc method instead, for a couple reasons. For one thing, it saves you the L$10 per image upload charge. Also, images uploaded into SL can often have their aspect ratio (their width to height) distorted in the process and make for a less attractive picture. And finally, you don't have to deal with permissions with an email or Google Doc.
150dpi resolution is preferred (lower tends to blur; higher takes longer to load). Make sure it fits the dimenIMAGE SUBMISSIONS Photos, comics, charts, etc. sions (such as your 2x3 ad;
INCENTIVE At the moment, as we haven't started collecting any revenue (yet), the only incentive we can currently offer is free advertising space for your business. Each submission that gets used (save letters to the editor or event listings) is entitled to one free 2"x3" graphical ad with link in the following edition of the paper.
photo) more than once, we will contact you to ask permission first. You also, in submitting, agree to give Manic Elf Media and the Lionheart Times permission to edit your submission for length, spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. for the purpose of publication in the newspaper. Image submissions may be cropped, resized, etc. for the purpose of publication in the paper. We will not otherwise "mess with" your work.
LEGAL STUFF In submitting your writing Any other questions? Conor image to the Lionheart tact Clover Windlow anyTimes, you give Manic Elf time via IM. Media permission to publish it one time in the newspaper. You still retain all rights to
Classified
Lionheart Times - September 19, 2010 - Page 5
REPORTERS WANTED – Want to surprise someone for a They could have been reading your Work for the Times! Free 2x3” ad right now. Advertise in the Times. birthday, anniversary, rezday, Contact Mistletoe Ethaniel or ad per contribution (excludes Classified Ads, Event Listings, or other special occasion? Clover Windlow. & Letters to Editor). Send an announcement!
Announcements
Real Estate - Commercial They could have been reading your ad right now. Advertise in the Times. Contact Mistletoe Ethaniel or Clover Windlow.
Up-to-the-minute Commercial land listings in Lionheart: Visit here anytime.
Real Estate - Residential Up-to-the-minute Residential land listings in Lionheart: Visit here anytime .
For Sale - Services They could have been reading your ad right now. Advertise in the Times. Contact Mistletoe Ethaniel or Clover Windlow.
They could have been reading your ad right now. Advertise in the Times. FREE AD! Your 2”x3” ad in Contact Mistletoe Ethaniel or
Freebies
this paper. FREE with your contribution to the Times (excluding Classified Ads, Event Listings, & Letters to Editor). Contribution and Ad must be received by Friday for publication following Sunday. More info at the Times Building.
Clover Windlow.
Work Wanted They could have been reading your ad right now. Advertise in the Times. Contact Mistletoe Ethaniel or Clover Windlow.
They could have been reading your For Sale - Goods ad right now. Advertise in the Times. Contact Mistletoe Ethaniel or They could have been reading your ad right now. Advertise in the Times. Clover Windlow. Contact Mistletoe Ethaniel or
Miscellaneous Classified Ad in the Lionheart Times, up to 20 words + SLURL for L$25/week. Bold L$5 more; Boxed L$10 more. Make payments at Lionheart Times Building, Lionheart Sarafina 97, 184, 29. Payment due at noon Friday for ads on following Sunday.
Clover Windlow.
Help Wanted
Travel The Casual Traveler
The Casual Traveler Visits visits No Salvation on Dragonrose Isle The time is here again, and The Casual Traveler feels the need to travel! This time it is one of his very favourite locations in all grid: No Salvation club at Dragon Rose Island. The Casual Traveler feels obligated to warn others, who might find this dark and gothic place appealing: it is in a RPG combat sim. Meaning, if you are not careful you will get attacked, plain and simple. This time The Casual Traveler decided to visit the only non-combat area of the sim: the dance club.
radio station. What a great mood enhancer! This is something many other sim owners should take note of. There is something very strange in the atmosphere of the whole place, The Casual Traveler feels spooked, but at the same time there is weird sense of serenity in the whole area.
The Club plays hard and gothic rock, mixed with very interesting pieces from the pop genre; one thing that really hits home is that the music selection, however gothic it is, is very suitable for What makes this place very eerie many tastes. is the "No Salvation Radio," their very own and very well-designed The Casual Traveler highly recPlease see Traveler, next page.
Lionheart Times - September 19, 2010 - Page 6
Features LOLlions
Mistletoe Ethaniel
Real Avatars of Genius
Mr. Cheap Club Owner
Traveler Cont. from Page 5 commends this place as an example of exellent design from the ground up. And, if you are into DCS-type fighting, then you will really be at home in this place. One last thing which The Casual Traveller wants to warn any visitor about: wear an approriate outfit when you visit, otherwise you might get banned.
Cryptoquote “OQK ZKVP AQ PMB PMTXLV OQK PMTXW OQK JSXXQP AQ.” - BHBSXQE EQQVBUBHP Hint: O equals Y
Each letter in the Cryptoquote If you are into exploring, especially gothic environments, stands for a different letter in the althen you have found the best place. As they say in the is- phabet. Use word length and letter land: "No Salvation - where dead come to live and living frequency to figure out the quote. come to die." Solution to our last Cryptoquote: Total stars: “Indeed, most of the bratty “kids” have been in Second Life for many months. Some even make Third Party Viewers.” -Prad Prathivi
[curtain] Him: Hey, welcome to my awesome club! Her: Thank you. I appreciate you contacting me about playing music here. Him: Yes, well, I’ve heard very good things about your band. We think you’ll be a great addition to our club. Her: So, how long have you been open? Him: We haven’t opened yet. We’re opening tomorrow. Her: Oh, you haven’t even been open at all? Him: Because of that, we have no money. So we want you to play for us for tips only. Her: … Him: The way I see it, it will be an investment. We get great bands like yours to play for us, and then people will come. And then we’ll be rich. Her: And then, what, you’ll pay musicians then? Him: Well by then you’d have played free for us for so long, you’ll make so much in tips, it will be way more than your rate anyway. Her: Listen, Jack. We’re asking for the equivalent of $13.28 to play music for one hour. Divided by two, since there are two of us in the band, that comes to $6.64 per person. My bandmate and I are willing to spend an hour playing music, for less than we’d get if we spent an hour flipping burgers. And you’re telling me you can’t afford that? Him: But I already said, you’d get that much in tips. Her: And how do you even know that? Your club hasn’t even opened yet! You’ve got no following—you’re evidently expecting me to bring an audience for you—so there’s a good chance that there won’t be many people here to tip at all. Him: But you see, it’s an investment. In the future. Her: An investment for who?! You’re not willing to pony up thirteen bucks! Sounds like the only one you’re expecting to make an investment here, is me! You cheap douchenozzle. Him: Well, we could insist on a cover charge from guests. Her: Oh boy, I see I’m dealing with a real financial wizard here. Tell ya what, once you get your head out of your ass and figure out how to raise thirteen stinking dollars, you go right ahead and give us a call. I give this dump six weeks at the most. Him: I think you’re being unreasonable here. Her: OK, you keep telling yourself that. @%#$ you very much. Him: That does it! Don’t ever expect to play at this club! Her: Oh, woe is me! How ever shall I make a living now? Here I was depending on that money that you were never going to pay me! Ass. [curtain] Real Avatars of Genius is an online “look at the stupid things people do in virtual worlds. You can visit it at http://realavatarsofgenius.tumblr.com and even submit your own ideas of Real Avatars of Genius.