Exploring Crow's Nest in the Blake Sea

Marie Monk and I set sail from the Baltic area, deep in the eastern reaches of the Blake Sea, and traveled west by sail for the island of Crow's Nest.

If one looks at a map of the region, the relative isolation of this island is quite apparent, situated as it is smack dab in the middle of the Blake Sea.

As we approached the island, the first thing that loomed in the distance was the enormous lighthouse, which at 85 meters tall is supposedly the tallest such structure in the Blake Sea.

As I eased The Wallaby closer, we were suddenly engulfed in a thick fog that made the entire aspect of the island somewhat sinister, though we could not help but be astonished at the beauty of the place.

A thuck thuck thuck sound also heralded the approach of a red helicopter, which landed in a helipad on the island and disgorged two furries, who came down to greet us and marvel at The Wallaby.

I moored the sailboat and we clambered out and up the steep stone steps, pausing for a while to read two signs posts that gave some history about the Blake Sea and some tips on what not to do when sailboat races are in play.

Blake Sea was created to cater to the sailing community in Second Life after the USS (United Sailing Sims), which owned a vast number of sims and represented the sailing clubs in SL, threatened to "jump ship from SL".

As time passed, the USS allowed other interest groups such as the Fighting Sails (informally known as the "Pirates") and the aircraft communities to extensively use the area as well.

We continued our climb up the stairs to the base of the lighthouse itself, which was inaccessible and barred with a chain gate, and discovered near the helipad a monument to one of the sailing community's worst disasters, when in 1979 a storm killed 18 people during the Fastnet Race in the Atlantic.

Far below us we spotted The Wallaby as it gently bobbed in the slight ocean swells.

We decided to risk death by taking pics on the helipad landing point as well.

As dusk approached I anchored The Wallaby and retired to the cabin inside and the restful bed.

And was surprised to discover in the morning that a sail race featuring more than 10 competitors in fast boats had started, looping in close to the island and back again to the start point again and again!

It was a surprising and satisfying end to the exploration of Crow's Nest in the Blake Sea.

Another Silly Meme

Since I love being a lemming, here's my replies to a meme from Lori Novo, who got it from Strawberry Singh.

1. What is the rez date for your current SL Avatar that you use most often?

monkeyking2011. MK. My main alt, the avi i came into SL with. Rez date of May 31, 2011.

Noobies

2. Where was the first place you made friends as a newb and got to know people in Second Life?

I came inworld with my ex-gf and I believe the first real friends we had was when we lived in Azure Islands after a stint at a Linden home. She was my one and only true friend at the time and I loved her very much.

At Azure Islands.

3. Where do you spend most of your SL time now?

Either at my home in Lorena Chung (at 2000 meter sandbox working, or watching my friends watch movies in the open air balcony) or sailing the Blake Seas.

Sailing past my home at Lorena Chung.

4. Who is your closest friend in Second Life? (only pick one)

A rowdy, perpetually-drunk, beauty named Marie, who is also a friend in RL, and who hails from the land down under, where women glow (not blow!) and men plunder (not thunder!).

At Crow's Nest in the Blake Sea

5. What is the most favorite thing in your inventory? (only pick one)

The Wallaby, my new sailboat.

6. The last thing you purchased in Second Life? 

The Wallaby, my new sailboat.

7. What color clothing does your avatar wear most often?

Black. Hides the blood stains after I torture leprechauns for spanking without a license.

With a talking bird I had just created for Timeless Treasures

8. Do you prefer to walk, run or fly?

Walk. Perpetually running avatars look silly.

9. What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in SL?

Made love next to the bleeding body of a rapist I had just filleted.

Such crazy kids in 2011

10. Who would you like to play YOU, in the movie of your SLife? 

Me, cuz I'm unique, just like everyone else.

Exploring the Nautilus Grand Canal

Sailing languidly through the sims of SL on the other hand, allows people to actually take time to look around, and spend time visually exploring their surroundings. They are part of the environment, submerged in it, instead of hovering hundreds of meters up and looking at it from afar.

One of the dreams I have is of exploring little islands in a yacht, doing my research on native species while I sail serenely from one unexplored tropical lagoon to another. In SL I have the chance to do that, though obviously the SL experience is quite lacking compared to real life.

Nevertheless, the thrill of discovering something that I had never seen before, of finding something beautiful and fascinating in the morass of everyday things, can be just as deep and fulfilling. Call the SL experience a practice run, a harbinger of hopefully things to come in RL.

In SL of course people can TP and fly and do all sorts of things that we normally can't. But in some ways I think this detracts from the thrill of discovery. Flying over diverse landscapes and TPing from place to place creates a fast pace of life that may cause one to lose sight of little things in the environment that should not have been missed.

Sailing languidly through the sims of SL on the other hand, allows people to actually take time to look around, and spend time visually exploring their surroundings. They are part of the environment, submerged in it, instead of hovering hundreds of meters up and looking at it from afar. This makes sailing one of the best ways of seeing SL, in my opinion, and once in awhile I'd like to show people some of the places I visited while sailing the seas of Second Life.

The little island of Barbarossa sits by itself on the western part of the Blake Sea, just across from the Nautilus Continent of the Linden mainlands. It is the gateway to the Nautilus continent, one of the Linden mainlands.

The island itself is quite small, but with a lighthouse, beach chairs and outhouses, and some moors for the occasional seaplane and ships.

It is however a frequent passing point for ships and aircraft. The beautiful sailboat in the pic below passes an old vintage airplane, which is obviously below 70 meters in the air and thus breaking an formal rule between the sailing organizations and the flyers.

I had been sailing west and had stopped by the island for a rest stop, and happened to notice in the distance the outlines of a massive structure.

Intrigued, I set sail westwards towards it, passing by one of the coast guard vessels that patrolled the area for miscreants.

As I came closer I realized it was a massive tower, decorated with silver dolphins along its many decks and fronted by a golden statue from which spouted fountains of iridescent water.

In front of the gargantuan structure were plaques that commemorated the builders of the surrounding area.

And this was when I noticed a channel that led into the mainland proper, a canal that thrust into the continent and allowed passage to sea-going vessels like The Wallaby. So I sailed on into the canal, and noticed that the thin strip of land which was protected land held structures that looked like ancient Greek temples.

At the end of the canal I came upon the most massive gates I've ever seen in SL, flanked by tall walls made of stone.

The gates were made of some bronze-like metal, with elaborate dolphins embossed on the front faces. I sailed bravely through the gates.

Dwarfed by the immense walls that flanked my now-miniscule sailboat.

Until I finally came upon a circular area where the canal ended.

Above me loomed the walls of this citadel, and beyond them buildings of various types and history. I circled round the closed arena, still using my sails, but had to start my engine on the way back because the wind as usual was blowing east and it would be rough going upwind in such a narrow passageway.

As I passed the gigantic gates, I clicked on them and to my surprise they closed ponderously and with great dignity, sealing for now the secret passageway to the heart of the city.

The Wallaby

In the Blake Sea, passed by the largest cruise ship ever!

I bought a 12 meter long MLCC Loonetta 31, a 100% mesh sailboat beauty and took her for a spin around the Blake Sea, since she's too big to ply in the shallow waters of Lorena Chung.

She's not a motorized ship, which means everything depends on the wind, and I tell you I am learning so much about sailing from this new hobby of mine. Motorized boating is pretty much the same as driving a car, but in sailing you need to keep track of the wind direction, and the angle of the sails, which changes your speed and direction with every change in degree.

In RL, i wanted a boat to sail the carribbean at one time after seeing some yachts flying Canadian flags in Puerto Vallarta of all places, but the idea got nixed by my wife (who watched Titanic lol),  so for now my SL sailing will have to do. It doesn't hurt that the sailing community in SL is one of the strongest associations in the virtual world (they forced Linden labs to set aside the Blake Sea sims for sailing and they have made sailing in SL as realistic as possible, almost like high end simulators). They also have a very busy and thriving community (composed of many yachting clubs), as you can see from the events schedule at Blake Sea.

Here's a pic of The Wallaby on a stand in my sandbox. I re-textured the name so it now says "The Wallaby" and re-textured the flag as well. I named her in honor of Marie, who's Aussie and who accompanied me as well on her maiden voyage.

Sunset pic of the superstructure...

Here's a pic of the spinnaker, and as you can see when the wind is right and i have it deployed people will be revolted by the sight of a gigantic depraved monkey rushing maniacally at them.

The detail is amazing, and all mesh, and up to 17 people can fit in (it's equipped with 17 poses distributed around the ship). I'll have more pics of the interior of the cabin later. Love it.

Walking Sheep

It was with some reservations that I agreed to escort the elegant Lori Novo into the wind-swept arroyos of the Dry Lands. I was no stranger to danger, and I had heard some bad things about that deserted region. Bandits, wolves, and indigenous gray people who loved to rise up from the red earth and drag you screaming into their rat-infested burrows.

But Lori wanted to walk her sheep, and so I packed my Phant Gun and we strolled off into the desert, staring in awe at rusted hulking ships that littered the sand like broken beached whales, and peering into deserted circus tents that sagged in the dry air like deflated balloons.

I was enjoying the walk, the quiet conversation, and the soft bleating of the sheep, when I saw large gray figures emerge from the horizon and streak towards us in long loping strides.

Lori screamed in fear and I took gun in hand, and moved to protect her and her flock. The wolves had come...

----------------------------------------------------

Archived poem:

Oh, we're little gray peep,
and we're walking our sheep,
hand in hand we go strolling,
in red Dryland we're walking.

Here comes Lori in gray,
she plays music all day.
Flute in hand she blows notes,
past the hulking dead boats.

Dashing MK he follows,
in his loud voice he bellows:
"Lori bring in the flock,
Cuz the wolves might attack!"

"On no, will you protect us?
But Sir MK you must!"
Little Lori starts crying,
blue eyes wide and imploring.

So they run to the pond,
where the ducks all abound,
And they hide in the reeds,

and the flowering weeds.

When the wolves come a-sniffing,

They charge out and start killing,

like the apocalypse coming,

Now the wolves all start dying.

When the battle is done.

And the wolves are all gone.

Lori gathers the sheep,

for the long return trip.

Oh, we're little gray peep,

and we're walking our sheep,

hand in hand we go strolling,

in red Dryland we're walking.

The Lure of the Sea

One the better things about Second Life is that it helps relieve the stress of real life for some people, instead of being a replacement for real life itself, which it shouldn't. I know some of my friends like to do Tai Chi and mingle with friends to wile the time, and it gives them peace.

I just discovered what does the same for me.

We live in the Lorena Chung Estates, which are about 7-8 sims interconnected with one another via beautiful waterways and lakes and small ponds. A few days back I noticed that you could take a boat and ply the narrow waterways between homes and parcels, though barriers and security orbs were somewhat of a threat.

I got a jetski rezzer and my friends Marie and Tinks and I discovered what fun it was to zoom through the channels at a breakneck speed, though the jerky movements of the jetskis needed constant attention.

But then I got a freebie Linden Nekka Sloop, and I fell in love with SL sailing. Instead of jerky fast movements, the sloop moved slowly and gracefully, its mass quite obvious and indifferent to the waves that slammed onto its sides.

I spent a lot of time going around the various Lorena Chung sims, watching the large homes, and hills, and waterfalls slide past, and it was like a calming balm that soothed my soul.

Here are some pics I took

Zooming past some pink flowered trees

Marie and I in front of our home. You can see the sloop parked in its dock.

Marie and I in front of a nearby waterfall.

Marie showing off her acrobatic skills

My sloop going past a much larger docked ship and the Lorena Chung Rent Control Island

Who wants some sheep and some birds?

We released two new products today at Timeless Treasures, though the scripting behind them are pretty much the same.

The first is Four Wearable Talking Pet Sheep, which include a flock of adorable multi-colored sheep, and the second is Beautiful Wearable Talking Pet Bird, with the items pics provided by Lori Novo.

They each boast a lot of features, including:

(A) AUTOMATIC GREETING

- pet will GREET PEOPLE BY NAME who come nearby with customized greetings that you can modify and create yourself.

- pet can GREET CLOSE FRIENDS with messages specially made for them!

(B) WEARABLE

- No limitation on where you can use pets!

- pet will FOLLOW YOU ANYWHERE because they are wearable!

(C) DISPLAY TEXT

- pets can display FLOATING TEXT of different colors above their heads. You can customize the text and easily change and switch them on and off.

(D) SOUNDS

- pets can make repeating pet SOUNDS

(E) VENTRILOQUISM

- You can TALK THROUGH THE pet, making it seem as if the pet is chatting logically and reasonably with people around it.

(F) EASY CONTROL AND CONFIGURATION

- Easy configuration using a NOTECARD.

- Easy control using pop-up DIALOG MENU when you touch pet.

What's up lollipop?

Tweety loves to...well...tweet.

Contrary to rumors persisting on the web, I was not abducted by space aliens, nor was I languishing in the  slave pits of Gor after losing a round of poker to some panther women.

I spent the last few days in second life working on the next items from Timeless Treasures.

One of them is sitting placidly on my shoulder in the image above. Tweety is a finely-crafted bird sculpt that greets people who come close using custom messages, and can tweet happily for hours on end (until i go batty and turn sound off).

Lori's rainbow flock of sheep

The other item is a flock of colorful, really cute sheep that follow you around bleating and greeting people, with personalized messages for any who are SL friends. Lori was quite taken by them and took some cool pics that we can use for the marketplace.

The scripts that run the two items are identical, with the only difference being the sound, a 9 second bird song clip for Tweety and a 5 second bleating sound for each sheep.

The birth of Timeless Treasures and The Red Rose

It is with great pleasure that I'd like to humbly announce the formation of a new store in the marketplace called Timeless Treasures, which will offer quality products at reasonable and quite affordable prices, The store will be managed by my friend Ronnie (ronhuber), and is jointly owned by Marie Monk (another scripter), Lori Novo, and myself.

Although we have big plans for the store, it started out earlier this month due to some fortuitous circumstances. I had made a sculpted red rose for my friend Marie a week or so ago, and added a couple of particle effects to it before offering it to her. She liked it so much that I decided to add more effects to it, as well as including an easier to use dialog menu that popped up when the red rose was touched by the owner.

The resulting red rose was so cool that I started thinking about selling it so more people could give their loved ones roses that actually did something, instead of simply sitting there. Unfortunately, the item did not fit well with the two stores that I had, which sold sex toys and security and rental boxes.

Marie had been thinking about starting her own store called Treasures, so I talked to her about it, and Lori as well, and we finally decided to create a new store that would hold all the miscellaneous items that didn't quite fit into the other stores, and thus was born Timeless Treasures.

 The first product in the store is the Timeless Treasures RED ROSE with Love Effects, Chat, and Pose Animation, which Lori discusses in some detail in her blog post.

The second product is one that we are just starting on, but should be finished by next week.

So stay tuned for more information about this new store, and please address any questions about the store to Ronnie (ronhuber). But please, no drooling when you meet her.

Say Hello to Timeless Treasures' New Store Manager

Tusk Games #2: Phant Zombie Apocalypse

Bring on the Phant Zombies!

I took a break from the Tusk project for a few days working on a secret project that will come out soon, but now I got another epiphany about the Tusk games.

It currently boasts two full game types right now, the first being the Elephant Hunt, and the second being the Hunter's Run, but I felt there was an intermediate portion between the two that I may have skipped.

In the first game, the hunter stalks and kills the Mama Elephant, but in the second game the tables are completely reversed and the hunter is being stalked by armed Matriarchy Assassins. There seemed to me to be a spot in between which should show how the hunter is first overcome and made to wear the Phant Mask.

This was Sunday night, and I was talking to Lori when she mentioned going to watch  the Walking Dead show, and suddenly it clicked in my mind what the intermediate game would be.

I was familiar with the storyline of this Zombie comics and TV series (and I even read a very good book based on it called Rise of the Governor), and when I first came into SL in mid-2011, one of the places I went to when I was just a week or two old had walking Zombies which you blasted using freebie guns.

Noobies hate zombies too!

Although I can't fathom the strong attraction to being chased by smelly decomposing walking corpse sausages, I decided there must be something to it, and the intermediate game in the Tusk series would involve gun-wielding players (including the original hunter) being besieged by walking "phant-mask wearing zombies" sent by the Matriarchy.

The zombies in this case would be simple animated bots that gravitate towards players automatically, and when close enough would score points against the player and drain their "energy", while at the same time players could score points by blasting the continuously rezzed zombies.

As before, the Tusk Hunt Engine used for the zombie game can later power stand-alone games in future products, so in one sense, this big Tusk project is laying the foundation for future development at the Depraved Monkey.

The Bounty Hunters

The Bounty Hunters (MK and Lori)

Thanks to the sweet and beautiful Lori Novo for inviting me to go bounty hunting with her. I did mistakenly shoot a pig or two in all the excitement, but we had a good old fashioned Texas barbecue after, so nothing was wasted.

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Archived poem:

Into grimy gulch they rode,
their horses parched and trembling,
saddles packed with bags of gold,
beneath the sun all gleaming.

The ever gorgeous Lori Novo,
with dashing MK following,
bounty hunters from the badlands,
ill winds blow to mark their coming.

The good people of Kitty's Birthday,
run and hide when they see striding,
black boots crunching on the hay,
hunters on the scent and prowling.

Into the saloon they march,
Lori with six-shooters blazing,
MK with his trusty shotgun,
as the wenches go in hiding.

When the gun smoke clears at last,
legs and arms are all sprawling,
in the bullet-ridden bar,
bad guys by the dozens dying.

In the aftermath of battle,
gunner eyes intent and wary,
as he finishes the job,
MK counts the day's brute tally,

Oh Lori, sweet Lori,
brave lady with blazing guns of glory.
Oh MK, brave MK,
lifts his face to the dawning of another day.

The Matriarchy and Hunter's Run

The Phant Mask

We had been wrestling with the storyline of the Tusk project for awhile now.

We know that the hunter in the story will get his or her comeuppance, but I could not figure out how or who would exact revenge on the perpetrator of the elephant genocide.

Then I was approached by a Matriarch of a secret organization called The Matriarchy, a religious cult that has existed for millennia and patterned their culture loosely on those of Elephant societies. These warrior priestesses had vowed vengeance on humanity for its slaughter of ongoing pachyderms, and I knew then how the story would pan out.

In several days time we set up scene 2 of the elephant tale, where the hunter has been transformed into a half-elephant creature who is hunted by gun wielding hunters. In an ironic twist, the hunter now feels what Mama Elephant felt when she was being stalked, hunted, and killed.

The game, called Hunter's Run,  involves the hunter donning a Phant Mask and trying to evade the bullets of other players shooting at him or her. Each hit by a player scores one point, and the hunter needs to stay alive for a set time limit in order to gain his or her freedom and transform back into a human being.

We basically took the hunting framework from scene 1 (The Hunt) and reworked it so it used an avatar as the prey instead of an animated elephant. This took quite a lot of modifications, and is really more sophisticated than the older system, but it seems to be working fine now.

In future, we can simply use this hunting framework for other toys that involve shooting and hunting.

The Hunt Scene finished

The Great Hunter starts The Hunt

 I pretty much completed the Hunt Scene for the Tusk project today. It was grueling work, but I'm happy with the results.

This scene sets the stage for the story, and is where the bad hunter goes and kills the Mama Elephant. I created the scene as a game, and two elephants (a Mama Elephant and Baby Elephant) are rezzed from the Tusk to start the scene.

In it you will use a so-called MK Phant Gun (lol) shooting bullets to try to bring down Mama Elephant, which will appear and disappear within a certain range, only staying in one location long enough to browse.

Every time you hit Mama Elephant you get 1 point, and it will take 20 hits to bring down the heroic creature.

You can have more than one hunter in the scene, and each hunter's hits are tallied and displayed at the very end of the hunt, so this allows people to see who can get the most points during the hunt.

There will also be a Baby Elephant in the scene which can shield the target mama Elephant on one side, and anytime you hit the baby you will be assessed a penalty of 1 point.

The MK Phant Gun and all other props (cuffs, collars, etc) and instructions can be taken by users from the Tusk Chest, which also opens and closes (surprisingly).

Next part is thinking up more scenes, and getting the voice scripts done. I also have to add more animation to the second X-rated Tusk, which is MLPV2 powered and has display, torture and fuck poses.

.

The use of voice sound clips to enhance products

Star Trek's Picard and the Depraved Monkey

 
We were thinking of incorporating voice sound clips in the last toy (Plumber's Revenge), but for one reason or the other never did. This time, given the more complex storyline on TUSK, I thought it would be nice to add it in.

SL restricts sound clips to 10 seconds maximum, though you can always string together clips for longer playing times.

Intstead of being directly invoked by the user using buttons on dialog menus, we envision the voice sound popping up at select intervals during particular scenes. (with the option of shutting down the sounds for people who'd rather not listen to them).

So, for example, when the hunter shoots at the mama elephant and hits it, we could have a voice pop up and say "A direct hit! Take that you monster!"

The main chore would be identifying points in the scene where voice would enhance the production, and then creating short scripts for those points.

The organ-damaging, heart-breaking TrixxyBell with her sexy cute voice will provide the clips once we've assembled the scripts, and I look forward to seeing (that is, hearing) how the clips integrate into the toy scenes. I think it'll go well, and I hope people think that too once they hear it.

Tire Kicking

We've never done end user feedback before a launch, but this time I decided suggestions, criticisms, and comments about the TUSK project might be helpful in creating a significantly better product, so yesterday night I plucked one of the Alanis girls over to give the toy a good run.

Judging from the "wow"s and gasps and other exclamations, it looks like we're on the right track so far, though I should encourage negative criticisms as most people are probably too polite to voice them.

Nevertheless, end user feedback will now be a permanent fixture in the development cycle of all major products at DM. Viva progress!