The Continents are Joining?

[Prokofy Neva]

So today at his Home & Garden Expo Talk, Patch Linden said "we've almost connected the continents...we're two regions away" (at 13:13). More info about upcoming Mole talk here.

Since I can't see the map at all (the map tiles are broken again) I'm not sure what this means.

He doesn't mean "all the continents of Second Life" because I did try flying out of Alston and Maryport again toward the orientation islands -- nope, still a hard wall, as it has been since 2004 at least, and likely always shall be, because this is old Sansara, or the Forgotten Mainland.

So he must mean the continent that is next to Bellissaria? I remembered more than a year ago, WHAT a scramble for land parcels there was there. Everyone wanted to Sail to Bellissaria -- when/if the continent was joined. I got some land there that somebody let go for a song...only to discover it was "waterbehind" not "waterfront" despite labelling of parcels nearby that this was some kind of group that "preserved waterfront" etc. So -- that didn't last long. It was impossible to sail to Belli back then. God knows I tried. But with ban lines and jagged parcels with stuff on them, etc. it was truly impossible. I got out of that situation because it seemed like the continent might take awhile to be joined...and here it's coming soon, I gather?

I remember when we opened up our little hangout in Jingi for the Mainland Appreciation Society we jokingly said "Sail to Bellissaria!" on the description -- and it took like two weeks to actually do that -- again due to ban lines, weird sim crossing, stuff. Belli was really far away, only last year!

Today it's right there! Like, next door! So, whew, that grew fast.

I miss the map. I like seeing the world as I fly around.

Perhaps there is someone with a different viewer or better connex than I have who knows which continent hooked up to what.

 

Edited March 11, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Daniel Voyager]

Can't wait for the Bellisseria continent and the Satori continent to be officially connected soon. It would be great if the Moles could add a few new airstrips and sandboxes with these new LH regions. Some of these new LH regions are showing up on the map. I am not sure if thats a mistake or some sort of preview. 

The Map really needs to be fixed asap. 

Bottom left is the end of the Stilt homes area with many active residents vs Satori continent in the top right corner (tons of green dots). The Wizard Peak region is just one of many new LH regions in the blue void. 

The Satori continent on the far right hand side. 

The end of the Stilt homes on the far left. 

 

Edited March 11, 2021 by Daniel Voyager

[Nika Talaj]

The new block of Belli regions that Daniel pictured is undoubtedly the location for the new Belli "Chalet" theme (which Patch shared he thinks of as the "Clockwork" theme), targeted to be released in about 2 weeks.  It does appear to extend to about 2 regions away from Satori. 

When that small gap is bridged, Sansara (+Heterocera), Belli, Jeogeot, and Satori (+Nautilus + BLAKE SEA) will all be linked, true?  Wow!

Edited March 11, 2021 by Nika Talaj

[Aethelwine]

I'll repost this here from the SSP thread as it will likely get lost there:

 

The Image of the new regions is created by a friend who has a system for assembling maps from the map tile images.

It shows the stilt homes of Bellisseria in the bottom Left and the Tip of South Satori in the top right hand side. The Grey regions presumably had no tile image information for them, where the 3 with images on would show what was on those regions back in November last year.

[Aethelwine]

13 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

The new block of Belli regions that Daniel pictured is undoubtedly the location for the new Belli "Chalet" theme (which Patch shared he thinks of as the "Clockwork" theme), targeted to be released in about 2 weeks.  It does appear to extend to about 2 regions away from Satori. 

When that small gap is bridged, Sansara (+Heterocera), Belli, Jeogeot, and Satori (+Nautilus + BLAKE SEA) will all be linked, true?  Wow!

From Jeogeot all the way to Gaeta V.

I hope they consider a protected waterway up to Bay City to meaningfully link in Heterocera. I also hope they don't forget poor Gaeta I, a release of Linden homes up there away from Bellisseria would bring all mainland apart from Zindra together. 

But I am over the moon with happiness to see what they are doing, Jeogeot to Gaeta V, is more than anyone would have considered realistic not so long ago.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Aethelwine

[Prokofy Neva]

7 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

From Jeogeot all the way to Gaeta V.

I hope they consider a protected waterway up to Bay City to meaningfully link in Heterocera. I also hope they don't forget poor Gaeta I, a release of Linden homes up there away from Bellisseria would bring all mainland apart from Zindra together. 

But I am over the moon with happiness to see what they are doing, Jeogeot to Gaeta V, is more than anyone would have considered realistic not so long ago.

So all of this is helpful to know.

Yoo-hoo, *waves*, we're on this old continent called Sansara. No, not Sansar, which is the name of the failed world filled with exciting prospects that Linden sold to another game company. Sometimes real estate agents called this "Old World" like in ads that say "delightful waterfront in Old World continent sim" which means it doesn't have the chemical wasteland texture of the Moth Continent (whose official name is Etcetera because it just goes on forever in concentric circles around bodies of water also taken from myths), it has this really beat-up hard scrabble brown texture which looks like the ground at our own neighbourhood park which once again (why? It was just 2 years ago it was rebuilt again! how does this happen?!) someone has gotten a contract from the city to rebuild. Didn't I just get it right?

So..."Sansara" is a word which means literally "world" in Sanskrit, and the dictionary definition is "the concept of rebirth and "cyclicality of all life, matter, existence", a fundamental belief of most Indian religions. In short, it is the cycle of death and rebirth."

The original Lindens, and even some of the Lindens today, are kind of techno-hippie California ideology kind of folks, so they liked New Age stuff, as do many of their customers today. I mean, now that the 1960s were 50 years ago, I do wonder when we will stop calling it "New Age" but..."The Future is Here! The Future is Now!"

I've also heard Sansara as referred to as meaning "illusion," but that's because in the Buddhist faith, the world is all illusions, the greatest illusion of which, we are told, is the death of a child. Another definition says it is "endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Or, you may understand it as the world of suffering and dissatisfaction (dukkha), the opposite of nirvana, which is the condition of being free from suffering and the cycle of rebirth." Here I pause to wonder how in the Indo-European root system, "dukkha" morphed to the Russian "dukh" which means "spirit".

I'm also wondering if Sansara is the endless cycle of suffering, death and rebirth, if Bellissaria then is "Nirvana". Guess so. 

So...These are all apt descriptions of Second Life as we know it.

So, Sansara was the very first continent, with the very first sims that existed even before the concept of "continent" developed, namely DaBoon and such. When the map is fixed [checks date] very, very soon! Soonest! look it up.

This continent is not connected.

And maybe it will never be connected.

Desmond thought it would be a good idea to sink all the abandoned land on the Mainland, re-stitch all the contiguous sims, which I think is "a cake walk" in programming terms, right? and then take this crazy quilt and...well, keep it still far, far away from his beautiful island rentals. And I think most people would agree. I personally would be sad to lose a known topography but since this happens in RL, too, it shouldn't be such a shock.

I'd love to know how easy it is to sink parcels on sims, let alone entire abandoned sims, and re-load them anew as if they never had those patches on them. A sort of lift and tuck cosmetic operation.

Obviously, linking continents is a different job, involving putting void sims in between the land tracts. I don't know if this is easier or harder to do with AWS, I should think easier. It hasn't been done because it does mean it adds not only to Linden's work load but then they have to keep those void sims, untiered, up and running. Unless of course they move to some kind of "on demand" system where the sea appears as soon as your boat does.

There was a reason God separated the continents, once all joined, with huge seas. And so maybe there will be a reason why our virtual world gods will not want to link up some continents.

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Aethelwine]

I like your posting style, Prok. Eloquent and informed, humorous and befuddling.

 

[Nika Talaj]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I'm also wondering if Sansara is the endless cycle of suffering, death and rebirth, if Bellissaria then is "Nirvana". Guess so. 

So...These are all apt descriptions of Second Life as we know it.

So, Sansara was the very first continent, with the very first sims that existed even before the concept of "continent" developed, namely DaBoon and such. When the map is fixed [checks date] very, very soon! Soonest! look it up.

This continent is not connected.

And maybe it will never be connected.

....

There was a reason God separated the continents, once all joined, with huge seas. And so maybe there will be a reason why our virtual world gods will not want to link up some continents.

Well.  That's truly a beautiful post, Prok.  You've made me kinda wish that Sansara were not already connected, to the Northwest corner of Bellisseria.  There is a straight-shot waterway down to Jeogeot.

The green regions at this Southern tip of Sansara belong to Patch and are each for rent at a rate of $L4000/day.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Nika Talaj

[Prokofy Neva]

2 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

I like your posting style, Prok. Eloquent and informed, humorous and befuddling.

 

Well, I can't always provide posts the size of your hand, which is what the kids want now, but to make it tweet-sized for you: my continent, where I live, is not being joined. To anything. At all. 

[Prokofy Neva]

54 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

Well.  That's truly a beautiful post, Prok.  You've made me kinda wish that Sansara were not already connected, to the Northwest corner of Bellisseria.  There is a straight-shot waterway down to Jeogeot.

The green regions at this Southern tip of Sansara belong to Patch and are each for rent at a rate of $L4000/day.

"There is a straight-shot waterway down to Jeogeot."

Jeogeot is not the Old World. Obviously. And Jeogeot is not Sansara. And that "straight shot" is, well...go and sail it some time. I'm not a sailor. I go around in my Bama Boat sometimes and see if there is really any way to get from A to B and usually there isn't due to ban lines. Trying to hug the Linden lanes is hard because some security orbs extend out into Linden water, although they shouldn't.

And like all geographical entities, it has four directions, north, south, east and west. Let's leave aside the "true" direction you get from the Minimap. If you look at the continent of Sansara, and where you note it is "linking up", that's only one side of it, the south side. But traditionally there was "east, west, and north" too. In fact, a link between Sansara and Etcetera is more justifiable in some ways.

It's hard to see anything now with the map broken but if you look on Nalates blog and other sites there are maps of SL.

I don't complain to anyone at all that the Mainland sim I won on the auction in 2004, paying US $1,501 for it, is not connected, on its continent,  in the "Hidden Lakes" or shall we say "midland" area -- to anything. Times change, things happen, prices change, that's life in the big city. I'm just saying that you cannot claim "the continents are connected" when not all of them are connected. They're just not. 

If you find some technicality here by saying the tip of Sansara is connected to a route to Bellissaria created by the Lindens, that doesn't count because...those are Linden sims. Oh, you mean the bunch of parcels that some lucky people elbowed their way to a year ago? So...you're certain no one has ban lines or rocks in the way to sail from that area to the Linden sea lane? Connection is as connection does. And I honestly have no regrets that I'm not among those over-priced parcel owners now. Because I don't like sailing that much. Especially portaging around ban lines.

So sims that the Lindens rent out to the public like "Becalmed" aren't anything at all but sims that Lindens rent out. Or rather, I should refer to them not as "the Lindens' sims" but "Patch's sims". (Got it, thanks for that correction.)  If they take their rental sims and link it to Bellisaria, what can I say, I'm happy for them. Maybe they should charge more for them. In fact, maybe they should sell those sims now with some really high falutin toney sort of community even more super cool than Bay City, beloved by Moles, and put their rentals somewhere else, I dunno, by my home, for example, which is like the "back end of NYC" known as the "FDR Highway" where they put the city morgue, garbage dumps, etc. even though people live on the other side of it. Again, that's life in the big city.

BTW, peer closely at this map and you can see who won this particular game. And I would say "the Lindens and their rental customers" if they like sailing, then those others in that skimpy "Gold Coast".

This is not "connecting up all the continents".

 

 

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

That is, put another way, if the Lindens or the Most Important Linden decide that they need to throw all their weight behind one growing tip of SL, Bellissaria, and their customers in that continent (which includes me in my Linden homes) and that culture (which doesn't include me but that's not important), then I can only support that because it really is a business decision that is justifiable. Internet/technical companies are always making new things and making their old product obsolete so their customers have to buy a new gadget. At least another premium account or burning the 1024 on it isn't as costly as the whole mainland sims were when they auctioned those products 17 years ago. If they auctioned even their prettiest sims these days, I doubt they could get those kind of prices for them. Because of private islands and homesteads, another product.

The people in the private islands take care of themselves. I don't think they require too much care from the Lindens as they once did, eating up all the Concierge office hours time, once that system was started -- because the islands didn't work well, and used to work worse than the mainland, hard to believe, but I merely direct you to the many posts in the archive of one "Swanson Schlegel" and you'll grasp this truism. The island product didn't take off at first because these stand-alone land bodies didn't work. 

Hard to believe, but at one time, when the Lindens rolled out the new sims at the growing tip of Sansara, where the lion's share of customers were (again, hard to believe that today), you couldn't fly to your own property. Yes, fly. There were telehubs, no point-to-point teleportation. I had to fly 1,000 meters to get from Waterthead to Ravenglass, landing in the Headbangers' Club that the awful build at Waterhead constituted, and after overcoming my TBI, flying up mid sea lane to avoid orbs -- and the winds were high. I usually made it. But when I bought land on Portage, I simply couldn't get to my expensive auction buy. The void sims didn't work as well at all. They would give you a hard stop the way the sea around Furness or Alston does today, though in theory you should have been able to fly through them. We used to literally hug the coast and walk to our land. Despite Jauani Wu's constant taunting of me for having a supposed bad computer set-up that couldn't enable flying to land, in fact this was the experience for most people.

When the Lindens created Heterocetera, at first it had no telehubs in this world that depended on telehubs for transportation, there being no p2p. They did this for "aesthetic" reasons because a claque of oldbies with stores around the Mainland sim of Fuji, one of the biggest lag monsters of the telehubs, endlessly complained on the forums. Hard to believe now, after their telehubs in places with only grazing deer, like Brownlee, and Moma, then became obsolete and worthless with p2p instituted. I once teleported directly on to Philip Linden's head to illustrate to him the problem of mapping and p2p and lack of privacy, and soon those people who sponsor SLuniverse were doing literally a land office business selling orbs. Orbs made the p2p somewhat worthless, but it was one way to control its excesses.

As the wise Simon Linden has said, "anything that has no limits becomes a vector for griefing."

I cite this history just to show that transportation, and getting from point A to point B has always been a changing -- and very politicized -- matter in SL. I opposed removal of telehubs not only because people had invested a lot of them (not me), and socialized at them (even I did occasionally) -- and it was a place where you could democratically and freely get a store, even if there were monopolists charging a lot, because the other system was to friend, and apprentice to, oldbies with stores far from telehubs, and there was only so many slots for that kind of advancement.

I got my start in an Anshe-owned store, paying rent, and then eventually Anshe, who had pre-set clients that paid her in advance to rent every telehub she won at auction, paid *me* to put her client on land by a telehub. And that's how it should be. The telehubs were actually places where business flourished, and Philip admitted that most of the world's economy came from telehub land with its stores and clubs. Because people go to them and shop and socialize, something that is looked up as low culture but which in fact everyone in SL participates in, at one time or another.

I used to rent landing space in what we called "The New Continent" (Etcetera) because you *could not cross the ocean*. There was one gal with a boat who made a fortune for a time literally ferrying people. Somebody else had a combination teleport/bridge system from his land in one of the expensive colour sims. I had people pay me merely to log into a continent *you could not get to* because the Lindens refused for ideological reasons to plant telehubs claiming it was "complicated". I discovered from Xenon Linden that in fact, there was no complexity. It was as easy as putting the telehub or landing place on your island which thousands of people had done. The issue was rather the build, and whether a Linden build would take up the area, to keep it pretty and lag free, or it would be auctioned to have malls, which some believed were avatar traps (they were, but traps they kept going to, because that's where the best skins and hair were).

Finally, the Lindens relented and put in the Moth Temple in Iris, the Hyles Swamp and other telehubs -- now infohubs. Then all of this highly politicized raucus discussion, in which a group of land owners literally claimed they would boycott the auctions of land in the remote Heterocetera unless the Lindens got over their hippie picnic, all went away. Because of p2p.

Almost nobody remembers much less cares about the history of telehubs and its politics, especially any Linden born after that time. But it is indicative of how Jane Jacobs doesn't always work in virtual worlds -- well, she does and she doesn't.

So today, the equivalent issue is "sailing". The Lindens catered to the sailing community by first helping the Blake Sea community and making sure they had fast and unimpeded lanes. And that's eminently reasonable, because it is popular, it grows in value, it's fun to do, and has no legal issues like Zindra may have in theory -- although most of Zindra is for sale now, and there are only a few adult clubs, illustrating that most people actually aren't that interested in *public* adult activity in clubs, especially of the extreme nature of some of it.

Most people want Bellissaria, for PG or M activity in privacy, and that's more than fine. Again, the Lindens have to follow what their customers like. I know that at my little level. I would want them to live in pods created by cynphul that look like something in outer space with Nice furniture and new Soy space lamps -- or maybe Steampunk. Or maybe all Nutmeg. Or whatever "high aesthetic" I wish. But most people are fairly satisfied with 30L Saturday furniture.

I do think that while the priorities make sense -- Bellissaria is the growing green cash tip; Zindra is for sale, but tier is still paid; islands take care of themselves; that you don't have to worry about "the old Mainland" which consists of, I dunno, Prokofy's rentals, some other guy's rentals who maybe never logs on, yet a third lady's rentals that are very nicely managed, some old furry and elf communities -- and a lot of blight if not horror. It would be fun to take inventory of the viable Mainland, which Mainlanders themselves should do as Lindens can't justify the time. As my son always tells me to do, make a spreadsheet, write up your assets, see what you have, see what the cash burn is, etc. Then you would have an agenda perhaps to bring forward to Lindens if you feel neglected, as if "progress has passed you by" etc.

Personally, I just want them to fix the map and search. Those two things. I don't need anything else to be happy in SL at my level. And if any particular constituency that feels it has now "won" SL now, or "beat the Linden bosses" or whatever the kids say, you have to remember the telehub land owners, one the kings and queens of SL. The Zindra luckies, who swapped into Zindra from Mature sims and reigned for a time. The boat captains on the Colour sims who ferried to Heterocetera, when there were no telehubs. The land dealers who cornered the market on those sims named for artists and scientists. Who remembers those today? The old salts that may have even died in RL now. At any time, while you're the growing tip today, you could be the back end of tomorrow when the "next big thing" is rolled out. Software is not stable. It is always being fixed and rolled out again. It's not like real life, which is more stable, generally speaking, although like the future, this stability is not distributed evenly.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Aethelwine]

You might like this image:

 

[Aethelwine]

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Well, I can't always provide posts the size of your hand, which is what the kids want now, but to make it tweet-sized for you: my continent, where I live, is not being joined. To anything. At all. 

That is what was befuddling me.. there is most definitely a link..

I would agree it is not really that meaningful without a waterway link to the waterways around Abbotts Aerodrome. (i am still hopeful that will come).

But Iridium and Lobster pot are linked and therefore the continents are linked.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Aethelwine

[Aethelwine]

I asked Jessica to include Gaeta on the map, the Lindens might have forgotten it, but no reason for us to and I still hold out hope one day it too will be linked...So now we have this view of the continents coming together:

Edited March 12, 2021 by Aethelwine

[Nika Talaj]

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

"There is a straight-shot waterway down to Jeogeot."

Jeogeot is not the Old World. Obviously. And Jeogeot is not Sansara. And that "straight shot" is, well...go and sail it some time.

Thank you, I boat in that waterway regularly, and have not encountered obstacles through the Bellisseria portion of it.   Once you get to Mainland, of course, all bets are off.

It seems that you are using a different definition of the word "connected" than Aethelwine and I are using.  Does your definition require that all points on a continent be accessible from another via land or low-flight transportation for two continents to be considered "connected"?  Please define.

I went up to Hidden Lakes and did not see any regions that were disconnected from Sansara via my definition of "connected", which would read something like:

"Sharing border(s) with other regions that are part of a continent, regardless of whether builds in place allow crossing those borders or not"

By my definition, for a region in the area of Sansara to be considered not part of the continent, it would have to be separated from Sansara by nonexistent regions on all sides.  I'm not saying no such regions exist, but if you know of one, it would be interesting to know its name.  The (rather ancient) wikipedia entry on Sansara does make reference to "Sims without direct access" in Sansara, but I don't know what that means.

Also, where is this area you're calling "Etcetera"?  I haven't found any reference to it.

Prok, your posts about the origins of SL are always educational, but over the years you have built up a vocabulary to describe SL that seems enigmatic to the casual reader.  So please forgive me asking these questions.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Nika Talaj

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

1 hour ago, Nika Talaj said:

Also, where is this area you're calling "Etcetera"?  I haven't found any reference to it.

Heterocera. 

[Eowyn Southmoor]

Sansara is a bit of nightmare for sailing, and as others have said, ideally you'd need a string of open water regions running round the west of the continent to link up at Abbotts. I don't think LL will see much financial value in doing this (happy to be proven wrong on this though).

Thinking more logically, the fact that the gap between the north-west area of the log homes, and the "squishy pickle" is empty and clearly unfinished, indicates to me that Bellisseria will expand here. There's already roads and one train line simply heading nowhere, so no doubt either an extension of the log home area, or a new theme, is planned here. 

From the map posted, it seems clear that expanding northwards from the unfinished log home area is going to bring Bellisseria very close to the north-eastern edge of Sansara, so this would appear a very likely spot to join up. Now i can't remember how many homes themes were planned (i have 11 in my head for some reason, but it may be 12 or 10), but if you follow the general north / north west expansion, I believe by the time LL are finished, a much larger "bridge" between the continents will take shape. I've tried to show what i mean on the picture below.

[Nika Talaj]

4 hours ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

Heterocera. 

Oh, duh, lol.  And I even have a parcel there.

[Mollymews]

14 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

if you have a hovercraft that goes on both land and water then the owner of that airfield in Meighen allows us to go thru their property. On the north side their parcel joins to a Linden highway. And on the south side the owner has made a opening in the wall that holds up the aero runway

so can drive on their road underneath the runway and out thru the hole in the wall. Is a bit of drop down to Rhodium but is easy doable. Then can putter on down south from there

[Lloyd Overland]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

if you have a hovercraft that goes on both land and water then the owner of that airfield in Meighen allows us to go thru their property. On the north side their parcel joins to a Linden highway. And on the south side the owner has made a opening in the wall that holds up the aero runway

so can drive on their road underneath the runway and out thru the hole in the wall. Is a bit of drop down to Rhodium but is easy doable. Then can putter on down south from there

Useful information, thanks for sharing.

Another option I and others have mentioned is one region to the west of the link regions that lead south to Bellisseria there is an existing protected parcel leading to the Linden road in Alcona. 

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Lloyd Overland
Remove duplicate photo

[Sister Nova]

My main mainland home is in the North East of Sansara, next to the lovely Greater Coniston regions. I regularly jump in my car and drive from there to the airport in Meighen, park up and then take a helicopter down to my property in Bellisseria (often landing at the airstrip and changing to a boat to complete the journey for variety). I can even carry on from Bellisseria down to a small parcel I own in Jeogeot. That’s all plenty connected. I can also travel from my Sansara home to my Flamingo Motel rental in Heterocera.

I am REALLY looking forward to the idea that I will soon be able to travel from these locations to my rentals in Corsica. For those of us that have travelled the grid in our various vehicles over the years, it will be the fulfilment of a long held dream that I, for one, never ever thought would realistically happen. 

[Prokofy Neva]

15 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

Thank you, I boat in that waterway regularly, and have not encountered obstacles through the Bellisseria portion of it.   Once you get to Mainland, of course, all bets are off.

It seems that you are using a different definition of the word "connected" than Aethelwine and I are using.  Does your definition require that all points on a continent be accessible from another via land or low-flight transportation for two continents to be considered "connected"?  Please define.

I went up to Hidden Lakes and did not see any regions that were disconnected from Sansara via my definition of "connected", which would read something like:

"Sharing border(s) with other regions that are part of a continent, regardless of whether builds in place allow crossing those borders or not"

By my definition, for a region in the area of Sansara to be considered not part of the continent, it would have to be separated from Sansara by nonexistent regions on all sides.  I'm not saying no such regions exist, but if you know of one, it would be interesting to know its name.  The (rather ancient) wikipedia entry on Sansara does make reference to "Sims without direct access" in Sansara, but I don't know what that means.

Also, where is this area you're calling "Etcetera"?  I haven't found any reference to it.

Prok, your posts about the origins of SL are always educational, but over the years you have built up a vocabulary to describe SL that seems enigmatic to the casual reader.  So please forgive me asking these questions.

"Linking up all the continents" means...linking the continents. If any side of any continent still faces a hard wall, and you can't fly or sail out of it, then it's not connected. If you can sail within Bellissaria, that's great, except the topic here is LINKING CONTINENTS. That means sailing OUT of Bellissaria TO SOMEWHERE ELSE, another continent. Again, what the actual story here seems to be is that now the Linden rental sims at the tip of Sansara are joined to Bellissaria's sea land run by the Lindens. 

You aren't grasping the simple issue here -- connecting the continents means...connecting the continents. It means linking BETWEEN the land masses, not WITHIN them. Obviously, the Hidden Lakes sims are connected to EACH OTHER, WITHIN the land mass or continent. But try flying OUT OF Furness, Alston, Maryport, etc. -- it's a hard stop. You cannot fly out of Maryport and land at the orientation island not so far away. There are no void sims. The continent is not connected in that way. Look at any of the furthermost sims on the edges of Sansara, you cannot fly out, except for this southern most tip.

Obviously, Sansara is NOT connected on all sides. I mean just go and fly there and you'll see. And the other continents are the way -- no fly, not sail. You're focused on connections among sims within the continent. Most of those seem to be connected in fact. But I'm talking BETWEEN the continents.

I've explained before that the Moth Continent, or the New Continent as it was popularly called for a time, officially called "Heterocetera" gets called "Etcetera" because people can't remember the name "Heterocetera", it gets called that. 

The "sims without direct access" don't exist any more, I don't think. There was this "solutions provider" company years ago that first had a business in SL, then became of the sherpas guiding the RL businesses in SL. They had an island that wasn't a private island (they weren't developed as much at that time), and was near the Mainland, but you couldn't just fly to it. I remember once a friend of this company head TP'd me in there. I believe one of the things they made were springy shoes, I still have them.

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

13 hours ago, Eowyn Southmoor said:

Sansara is a bit of nightmare for sailing, and as others have said, ideally you'd need a string of open water regions running round the west of the continent to link up at Abbotts. I don't think LL will see much financial value in doing this (happy to be proven wrong on this though).

Thinking more logically, the fact that the gap between the north-west area of the log homes, and the "squishy pickle" is empty and clearly unfinished, indicates to me that Bellisseria will expand here. There's already roads and one train line simply heading nowhere, so no doubt either an extension of the log home area, or a new theme, is planned here. 

From the map posted, it seems clear that expanding northwards from the unfinished log home area is going to bring Bellisseria very close to the north-eastern edge of Sansara, so this would appear a very likely spot to join up. Now i can't remember how many homes themes were planned (i have 11 in my head for some reason, but it may be 12 or 10), but if you follow the general north / north west expansion, I believe by the time LL are finished, a much larger "bridge" between the continents will take shape. I've tried to show what i mean on the picture below.

That's a very helpful map, thank you. And that shows exactly what I'm talking about. There isn't any "connecting up all the continents". It's a very narrow prospect centered in Bellissaria, and connecting it to some edges that make sense for sailing, I guess, or just because it's the easiest route.

[Nika Talaj]

6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

"Linking up all the continents" means...linking the continents. If any side of any continent still faces a hard wall, and you can't fly or sail out of it, then it's not connected. If you can sail within Bellissaria, that's great, except the topic here is LINKING CONTINENTS. That means sailing OUT of Bellissaria TO SOMEWHERE ELSE, another continent. Again, what the actual story here seems to be is that now the Linden rental sims at the tip of Sansara are joined to Bellissaria's sea land run by the Lindens. 

You aren't grasping the simple issue here -- connecting the continents means...connecting the continents. It means linking BETWEEN the land masses, not WITHIN them.

/me sighs.  I should have known this would turn out to be a semantic exercise.

To me and I think to most others,  "Linking up the continents" refers to adding to the few already existing intercontinental links (e.g. the ANWR channel) so that eventually it becomes theoretically possible to travel (via whatever method) between all of the continental masses.  Not to every point on each continent, or obliterating the distinctions between continents, as you seem to desire or fear (hard to tell).  Will they eventually fill in spaces so that there are more points of contact, perhaps entire coastlines?  Your guess is certainly as good as anyone elses.

To me, the "actual story" here is the impending link between the brand new northeast corner of Belli (almost certainly the new chalet LH area) and Satori, as Daniel pointed out, not the already existing intercontinental link between the southern tip of Sansara and the Northwestern corner of Belli.  Why it matters whether the land linked happens to belong to Lindens or Joe Q. Random, I neither know nor care.  Tho from my perspective as a tourist, it is nice that the channel to Sansara leads to protected land, so that one can actually disembark without fear of ban lines.  Would be even cooler if there were a rez zone or two at that tip so that one could disembark, wander, and return via a vehicle, but I get a kick out of just being able to get there from Jeogeot, and, soon, Satori.  So sue me.

Re: Heterocetera - The name is certainly hard to remember, you're right.  Maybe someday the map will actually be aware of the continent names, which would help a lot.  Not holding my breath.  FWIW, as nicknames go,  I find "The Atoll" less denigrating than "Etcetera".

 

Very cool maps, thank you!  It will be interesting to see if the remaining themes are all aggregated to fill in that space, as you propose.

I seem to remember there being 10 themes in total.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

32 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

/me sighs.  I should have known this would turn out to be a semantic exercise.

To me and I think to most others,  "Linking up the continents" refers to adding to the few already existing intercontinental links (e.g. the ANWR channel) so that eventually it becomes theoretically possible to travel (via whatever method) between all of the continental masses.  Not to every point on each continent, or obliterating the distinctions between continents, as you seem to desire or fear (hard to tell).  Will they eventually fill in spaces so that there are more points of contact, perhaps entire coastlines?  Your guess is certainly as good as anyone elses.

To me, the "actual story" here is the impending link between the brand new northeast corner of Belli (almost certainly the new chalet LH area) and Satori, as Daniel pointed out, not the already existing intercontinental link between the southern tip of Sansara and the Northwestern corner of Belli.  Why it matters whether the land linked happens to belong to Lindens or Joe Q. Random, I neither know nor care.  Tho from my perspective as a tourist, it is nice that the channel to Sansara leads to protected land, so that one can actually disembark without fear of ban lines.  Would be even cooler if there were a rez zone or two at that tip so that one could disembark, wander, and return via a vehicle, but I get a kick out of just being able to get there from Jeogeot, and, soon, Satori.  So sue me.

Re: Heterocetera - The name is certainly hard to remember, you're right.  Maybe someday the map will actually be aware of the continent names, which would help a lot.  Not holding my breath.  FWIW, as nicknames go,  I find "The Atoll" less denigrating than "Etcetera".

 

Very cool maps, thank you!  It will be interesting to see if the remaining themes are all aggregated to fill in that space, as you propose.

I seem to remember there being 10 themes in total.

 

 

36 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

/me sighs.  I should have known this would turn out to be a semantic exercise.

To me and I think to most others,  "Linking up the continents" refers to adding to the few already existing intercontinental links (e.g. the ANWR channel) so that eventually it becomes theoretically possible to travel (via whatever method) between all of the continental masses.  Not to every point on each continent, or obliterating the distinctions between continents, as you seem to desire or fear (hard to tell).  Will they eventually fill in spaces so that there are more points of contact, perhaps entire coastlines?  Your guess is certainly as good as anyone elses.

To me, the "actual story" here is the impending link between the brand new northeast corner of Belli (almost certainly the new chalet LH area) and Satori, as Daniel pointed out, not the already existing intercontinental link between the southern tip of Sansara and the Northwestern corner of Belli.  Why it matters whether the land linked happens to belong to Lindens or Joe Q. Random, I neither know nor care.  Tho from my perspective as a tourist, it is nice that the channel to Sansara leads to protected land, so that one can actually disembark without fear of ban lines.  Would be even cooler if there were a rez zone or two at that tip so that one could disembark, wander, and return via a vehicle, but I get a kick out of just being able to get there from Jeogeot, and, soon, Satori.  So sue me.

Re: Heterocetera - The name is certainly hard to remember, you're right.  Maybe someday the map will actually be aware of the continent names, which would help a lot.  Not holding my breath.  FWIW, as nicknames go,  I find "The Atoll" less denigrating than "Etcetera".

 

Very cool maps, thank you!  It will be interesting to see if the remaining themes are all aggregated to fill in that space, as you propose.

I seem to remember there being 10 themes in total.

 

Well, it's not really semantics that is the issue.

It's willingness to be critical of the status quo -- or justify it. That's really what it's about.

Why would "linking up the continents" mean ONLY adding to "the few already existing intercontinental links"? Only if you accept that "continents can't all be linked, why are you demanding that" or "the few that exist are good enough, why do you want more" etc. You don't have to have the goal of "linking up all the continents" -- a goal that may not make financial or even virtual sense -- to admit that this exercise is only a very limited linking.

To claim that putting void sims by Furness or Maryport to make them sailable or flyable is "obliterating the distinction between the continents" is simply absurd. Water is between them obviously. Even now, there is water that is visible, but it's not a true void sim you can cross. So it's not about removing bodies of water to smush them all back together. I don't know of any lobby in SL demanding the continents be "pushed back together".

I'm just not for saying you are "linking up all the continents" when in fact you have only widened an existing Linden sea land to reach Linden sims, and benefiting a tiny group of lucky landholders and of course Bellissaria.

Because that is not linking up the continents.

This map referenced picks out one sort of "Bermuda Triangle" that makes sense to broaden out because of existing demands by sailors or people who want their land to have more value. That's fine. I don't place a demand on the Lindens like "make all the water around me sailable/flyable so I don't have to pay US $1000 for a spot by Blake". There are enough other seas you can fly to, and public docks. I'm just saying that the job of "linking up the continents" is far from done, not a goal, and even FINISHING one or two of the continents is not a goal, now that there is Bellissaria, and that has to be recognized.

The Lindens, like all Silicon Valley big IT, even if they are small IT, make products that become obsolete, forcing their customers to buy a new iteration. There's no more Viewer 1.23; prims and sculpties are only for narrow, niche or amateur crafts people, as mesh is king now. Etc. Most of the customers go along with this because they want "new" and "shiny". But the Lindens, like other makers of virtual and digital and Internet products, find that their customers then become an obstacle to them. They don't want change. They like the version of Windows they have -- it works. They want their Sony walkman -- it has nostalic associations. They think this or that product in the Google graveyard of hundreds of products is the cat's pajamas because they had their own personal community or job built up around it. Etc. The Lindens are faced with their first iteration of homes -- which can charitably be called "sturdy" or what-have-you but which no one wants anymore. So what do they do? Forcibly evict the view die-hards or no-shows? Linden Realms games are being griefed and exploited, like all things in SL are eventually "because digital" -- so what do they do? They can't shut them down -- people like them and they themselves invested a lot in them. So they cut their payouts in half and hope to shake loose the exploiters. I do this at my little level shutting down cheap campsites. Eventually people understand that if they value this or that activity, they can't grief it and exploit it, or allow others to. Or not. The Lindens have a population now --as they always have -- that are "in the way" now. That population has changed in type or culture or number over the years. But it's their business challenge. So if any of us find ourselves deliberately or accidentally in those categories, we have to make the case for this or that feature or practice.

I'm for being truthful in describing the events as they happen and not talking doublespeak to shoe-horn them into this or that desired political category.

I've lived for 10 or 15 years or however long it has been without Gaeta being "finished" and I think only have like once parcel left there as it is a wasteland in large part. Why should the Lindens finish out that continent with various new sims that they would have to go to the trouble either to auction as full sims (something they seem to have decided internally to end) or roll out as communities of content or purpose (something they are willing to do now only for Bellissaria). I mean, if Gaeta is never finished, it doesn't matter, because planning is not driven by "how the map looks". I think? I mean, somebody make the case.

You've picked out the "story" you think is relevant here, and it may well be, and I may agree with you, once I can study the map again and fly to places -- functions that are currently entirely crippled. But likely I won't. You can pretend that you don't care about "who owns the land" but anyone with eyes to see can see the groups that benefit from these "hook-ups," literal and figurative, because they put giants signs in the sky about themselves (a practice I wish the Lindens would ban, but that's just me.)

Jeogeot is hard to "get a kick out of," as I know from just the one little area I've tried to develop there -- facing myriad ban lines, odd patches of abandoned land that you may get, but then turn out to be locked in by still more ban lines, ridiculously high prices for things that are not even waterfront actually, etc. etc. It's hard just to fly around this area.

"The Atoll" is indeed one of the names the Lindens gave for a time to Etcetera. They now have dropped that usage, just like they dropped the use of the word "sims" and now say "regions" for reasons I don't understand, nor do I wish to mimic.

I don't know where the name "Heterocetera" came from; possibly from the Linden who was into electronic music groups but isn't here any more. It was related to a Greek myth -- and actually the makers of The Sims Online (Will Wright) drew on the same concept of that body of water with the concentric circles in their main land body.

This doesn't really tell the history critically and I think is factually wrong but it's got some useful information.
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Heterocera