Seconderth (a deep map): Rizal Revisited

Rizal was one of the first regions to be added when Second Life went from closed to open beta, at the end of March 2003. I first blogged about it last August, and mentioned then that it, as well as Oak Grove, were being rebuilt on Mole Islands dedicated to the tasks. (The Moles, you’ll recall, are more officially known as the Linden Department of Public Works.)

Last week, my invaluable colleague Mari McCann IM’d me to say that the Rizal project had been delivered:

 

It preserves the Hedge Maze from 2003:

… restores the Bumper Boat Blast from 2006:

… adds a waterfront:

…a hippo-themed playground:

…and a peaceful forest path:

It also adds hope that another of the LDPW’s restoration projects, Oak Grove, will be finished and moved to the main Grid soon (that’s it in the upper left corner of the playground photo, with Red Rocks Stage and the tattered remains of Wild West Town).

Since Rizal is right next to my old furry stomping grounds, I strolled around there for a while and found a couple of new things, which can be seen in my online collection.

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Seconderth (a deep map) : Bay City Boardwalk

Bay City: one of the newer, and preeminent, themed estates in Second Life, with a strong community feeling and the organization to back it up. Until January of this year, only the right-hand group of regions existed on the Main Grid, but there was a nearly-identical duplicate on the Teen Grid.  Then they were merged… the adult Bay Citizens reached out to their new younger neighbors, and now it’s pretty much all one.

The left-hand copy — more accurately, the inlet on its northern shore — is the focus of this Seconderth entry. Marianne McCann (more of a SL history maven than I am, and frequent contributor to my research) alerted me to a Linden Department of Public Works project in those two regions, Weston and Oak Bluffs. In keeping with the twin estate’s overall  theme, it’s an old-fashioned boardwalk with piers, like the one in Atlantic City before the era of casinos.

Both of the entrances are guarded by a pair of — what else? — hippos, first created for the infohubs by Altruima Linden in December 2005 (Mari tells me that many of those are still in place).

The rest of the structure is the work of Sylvan Mole, who marked it “Entrance Idea (don’t use me)”  Sorry – they did anyway.

Anyone want to speculate about “Funnel Cakes of Doom”?  I’m not sure I do…

Now then… Here is the bait Mari used to entice me to visit this construction site: the boardwalk itself.  The LDPW Moles have constructed it using prims first rezzed by Alberto Linden.

The oldest make up the boardwalk’s surface — November 11, 2002, not long after Linden World became closed-beta Second Life  — and were first used in the boardwalk in Varney, long since gone.  The log understructure dates from 2005, and can also be found (along with the surface prims) in the Boardman boardwalk. The railings were created in 2005 as well, but I don’t know where else they may have first appeared (please post in the Comments if you recognize them).

Past the boardwalk’s western end, you’ll find this tunnel passing beneath the canal:

It leads to Oak Bay, the next region north, where the Moles are putting the finishing touches on an aquarium. All of the denizens of the deep are already installed, and they are extremely well done. I photographed some of them (but not all – I want you to go there and see them yourself!), and you can find those here, along with more of the boardwalk (including the mystery railings).

I have to share this, though:

Beware (of someone pushing you from behind into) deep water!

By the way… next Saturday, May 14, Bay City is celebrating it’s third birthday, with a parade and musical events, beginning at 12:30 pm.

PS: In my next Second Life, I want to be a Mole.

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Seconderth (a deep map): SS9B

Nine years ago today — March 13, 2002 — someone who was not an employee of the fledgling Linden Lab logged in to “Linden World”, the alpha version of Second Life, and by doing so became The First Resident:

Legend has it (and I see no reason to doubt) that Steller stayed logged in overnight, building. First to be rezzed, a prim at a time, was this cabin:

Followed by The Beanstalk:

Not bad for a night’s work… and it says something important about the user interface’s learning curve, too. If you are (as I assume you must be, if you’re reading this blog) a current visitor/user/Resident/customer of Second Life, think for a moment about how much more rudimentary (and laggy!) everything was in Linden World than that which we complain about now… and understand that a person inspired by the possibilities could still accomplish all that on her first login!

When Linden World was taken down, replaced by 16 new regions, and renamed Second Life (some time around the end of October, 2002), certain landmark structures were preserved and re-rezzed. Steller’s cabin was not among them, but the Beanstalk was… and so was this:

Now known as “The Governor’s Mansion”, and located above the east coast of Clementina, it was Steller’s home in Linden World. It now has a basement level containing a slipshod attempt at a museum, which includes a display of this Linden World screenshot taken during construction (July 2002):

Notice the door in mid-air, in the process of being placed, and the Beanstalk at some indeterminable distance in the background.  I have to guess that the avatar is Steller, and that she captured this image, but I feel my guess is on solid pixel ground, since the hairstyle matches this photo of Steller dancing with some guy at a party at her place after it was finished:

In the comments to the NWN post linked above, brinda Allen mentions that Steller’s in-world presence was noted as recently as a year ago.  It’s nice to think that the Oldest of the Oldbies still logs in every once in a while…

Happy 9th Rezday, Steller!

(…and, coincidentally, happy ninth anniversary to “user generated content” not created by a Lab employee — to some, as important a milestone as Steller’s first login)

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Note: The Beanstalk, and many other of Steller’s early creations, can be found on her land in the center of Welsh. There is also a surprise inclusion of prims she created the same day as the Mansion, as part of a build in Immaculate. The photo of the cabin comes from a web page Steller authored, which is still online. Two instances of the party picture can be found in-world: one is in Steller’s Viewmaster on the ground in Welsh; the other is in the museum on I-World Island.

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