RL Replica Regions

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hi Kids,

@milla0097's pursuit of resident participants for her master's degree research is still tugging at me (okay, Milla is tugging at me, but that's fine ;-), so I thought I'd see if I could enlist a little help from the rest of you. Milla and her faculty adviser have taken our previous advice, and Milla has dropped her impossible search for people who've visited SL's Little Santorini, followed by a RL visit to the actual Greek island. She's broadened her search to creators and/or owners of SL replicas of RL places. I already pointed her to @Robin Kiyori the creator of Little Santorini, who was gracious enough to answer Milla's call. Now Milla's hoping to find other contacts.

I haven't done a lot of exploring in recent years, and the only SL replicas that come to mine are Paris 1900 and Jo Yardley's "The 1920 Berlin Project". Of course both of those replicas are from famous places in different times, but that's one of SL's attractions. It's not bound to any place or time. Nevertheless, Milla needs some direction. Though I still think her project is an uphill climb, I'm a sucker for a lost master's candidate. I was once one myself, until I discovered that you can't be lost if you don't care where you are going.

So, do any of you know of SL recreations of famous RL places? Even better, do you know the creators/owners of such places, so that Milla needn't make a completely cold call?

Edited April 6, 2022 by Madelaine McMasters

[Silent Mistwalker]

Off the top of my head.

https://secondlife.com/destination/new-orleans-city

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Silent Mistwalker

[Paul Hexem]

There is Second Norway, attached to the Blake.

Might be easier to talk to people there.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

I won't likely be able to log in until sometime tomorrow to see what I've got in my LM folder, but a few thoughts off the top of my memory.

Kowloon

Scapa Flow -- Historical, but lovingly recreated. I know the owner/creator quite well

Venice -- If this is the one I think it is, it's VERY well done

Machu Picchu -- Quite an old build I think, but still really interesting

Hotel Chelsea, NYC -- Also reasonably old, but worthwhile and quite popular

New Berlin -- Quite nice, modern recreation. Includes Alexanderplatz.

There is another quite nice and more modern rendition of Paris, but I'd need to search my LMs. Also, the Time Portal has recreations of New York (1930s & 40s; 1950s & 60s) and London (1940) as well as Berlin.

I'll send you more . . . eventually!

Edited April 6, 2022 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Lindal Kidd]

There used to be a replica of part of downtown New York City, and one of the Sydney Opera House.  I don't know if they're still there. There also was a replica of part of the Grand Canyon, the African veldt, Mars, old Route 66, and Miami Beach (the actual beach part, not the high rises).

Then there's the SS Galaxy. It's not a replica of any particular cruise ship, but I think it is a very good generic cruise ship.

[missyrideout]

Mitsumi-Town in Tokyo

https://secondlife.com/destination/mitsumi-town-in-tokyo

[Scylla Rhiadra]

It occurs to me that @milla0097 might find her task a bit easier if she can locate recreations with active communities already in place.

Lindal mentioned Mother Road (Route 66), which I should have remembered myself, as I took a photo there 5 days ago. It has, I think, a pretty active community -- but I don't know how many people visit Route 66 in RL as tourists?

On the other hand, 1920s Berlin has a probably unrivalled community -- and although it's an historical recreation, I'd be very unsurprised to learn that that community includes at least a few people who have visited Berlin subsequent to their experience of the SL place, and probably in part prompted by it.

Scapa Flow also has a smallish community -- but again, do people visit the RL place as tourists? (*shivers*)

If she is willing to also include more "generic" RL destinations, there are places like The Village of Ciampi, which is a sort of generic recreation of a small Italian town and port (Tuscanny? Umbria?), and which also has a pretty active community. And in that case, I also know the owner reasonably well.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

I was going to suggest Cuba, but I'm not entirely sure if that's just themed or an actual replica of a village. Cute though.

There are some actual sims based on real life locations listed here, though - https://secondlife.com/destinations/real/

[Sandrine Vanbeeck]

2 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Off the top of my head.

https://secondlife.com/destination/new-orleans-city

 

 

 

Oh. You should see it nowdays ! It improved a lot !  🙂

[Persephone Emerald]

Mont St. Michel still exists and is well worth visiting.  Also, when it comes to New Orleans sims there are several. New Toulouse is my favorite. There was one that had a Mardi Gras Parade running 24/7, but I don't know if it still exists.

There are a couple sims that try to recreate a well know theme park with a mouse mascot, but mentioning the Big Brand might get the sim owners in trouble. 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Prokofy Neva]

7 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Hi Kids,

@milla0097's pursuit of resident participants for her master's degree research is still tugging at me (okay, Milla is tugging at me, but that's fine ;-), so I thought I'd see if I could enlist a little help from the rest of you. Milla and her faculty adviser have taken our previous advice, and Milla has dropped her impossible search for people who've visited SL's Little Santorini, followed by a RL visit to the actual Greek island. She's broadened her search to creators and/or owners of SL replicas of RL places. I already pointed her to @Robin Kiyori the creator of Little Santorini, who was gracious enough to answer Milla's call. Now Milla's hoping to find other contacts.

I haven't done a lot of exploring in recent years, and the only SL replicas that come to mine are Paris 1900 and Jo Yardley's "The 1920 Berlin Project". Of course both of those replicas are from famous places in different times, but that's one of SL's attractions. It's not bound to any place or time. Nevertheless, Milla needs some direction. Though I still think her project is an uphill climb, I'm a sucker for a lost master's candidate. I was once one myself, until I discovered that you can't be lost if you don't care where you are going.

So, do any of you know of SL recreations of famous RL places? Even better, do you know the creators/owners of such places, so that Milla needn't make a completely cold call?

Come to the International Bazaar at Memory Bazaar in Ross, the resident-run infohub.

We have tables from many countries of the world with cards that link to the RL sims that go with those countries. So you have everything from Machu Piccu to the Grand Canyon to Moscow's Red Square. These sites aren't just the RL replicas, although there are a lot of those, but also sites like a Taiwanese social club.

 

[ChinRey]

9 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

There is Second Norway, attached to the Blake.

Second Norway is hardly a replica of RL Norway, it's only very loosely based on it. There are some small parts of it that is more "authentic" though, like the lovely replica of Bryggen in Bergen.

 

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Come to the International Bazaar at Memory Bazaar in Ross, the resident-run infohub.

Oh yes, that is a great resource! But keep in mind that the topic there is themed regions which includes everything from replicas to places vaguely inspired by some RL location.

[Prokofy Neva]

3 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Second Norway is hardly a replica of RL Norway, it's only very loosely based on it. There are some small parts of it that is more "authentic" though, like the lovely replica of Bryggen in Bergen.

 

Oh yes, that is a great resource! But keep in mind that the topic there is themed regions which includes everything from replicas to places vaguely inspired by some RL location.

No, actually, I don't list places "vaguely inspired"; they are usually sims that are RL country sims with the languages of that country. Usually I divide each card -- if there are enough listings -- into the replicas and social clubs, then universities, then RP sims, usually for historical periods of that country.

Also Second Norway isn't some imaginary vaguely Norwegian place; it's Second Norway, a place for Norwegians to enter SL that in fact replicates Norway. Anything in a virtual world, of course, is not going to be "exactly like" the RL counterpart. For one, there's only so many prims that fit on a sim. But more than that, putting in RL type buildings or houses at their scale and type often just doesn't work very well in SL and makes for an unwieldy, crowded feeling.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[Luna Bliss]

[Silent Mistwalker]

9 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

New Toulouse

Isn't that the one where they recreated the French Quarter mainly? If it is, it's the one I was trying to remember the name of. It was an almost exact replica of the square with the basilica and everything. Best reproduction I've seen in SL in 18 years.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Silent Mistwalker

[ChinRey]

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Also Second Norway isn't some imaginary vaguely Norwegian place; it's Second Norway, a place for Norwegians to enter SL that in fact replicates Norway.

I'm Norwegian, remember, I've lived in Norway all my life and I've moved quite a bit, from east to west and from north to south. I think I have a reasonably good idea what Norway looks like and the Second Norway estate does not resemble it at all. There are some landmark builds, like Bryggen and the medieval wooden church, that are distinctively Norwegian but those aren't really typical for RL Norway either, they are landmarks and tourist atractions because they are unique.

If you want to see something resembling a piece of Norway in SL, go to Half Hitch. That sim wouldn't have looked too out of place along the western and northern coast 70 years ago and there are still some abandoned islands that look something like it.

Here are a few fairly random pictures of RL Norway. It's a country with a very varied landscape so I can only cover a fraction of it here of course but you should get the idea.

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by ChinRey

[ChinRey]

Posting this as a separate reply because it's a different sub topic.

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Anything in a virtual world, of course, is not going to be "exactly like" the RL counterpart. For one, there's only so many prims that fit on a sim. But more than that, putting in RL type buildings or houses at their scale and type often just doesn't work very well in SL and makes for an unwieldy, crowded feeling.

You're absolutely right. Second Life is simply too small to make really good replicas of RL places. The combined nominal area of all regions in SL are less than 1500 square kilometers (less than 4000 square miles for our American friends). That's about the same size as London or one tenth of the size of illinois or...

The actual area of SL is actually only half of that because everything tend to be oversized there.

[Silent Mistwalker]

47 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

I'm Norwegian, remember, I've lived in Norway all my life and I've moved quite a bit, from east to west and from north to south. I think I have a reasonably good idea what Norway looks like and the Second Norway estate does not resemble it at all. There are some landmark builds, like Bryggen and the medieval wooden church, that are distinctively Norwegian but those aren't really typical for RL Norway either, they are landmarks and tourist atractions because they are unique.

If you want to see something resembling a piece of Norway in SL, go to Half Hitch. That sim wouldn't have looked too out of place along the western and northern coast 70 years ago and there are still some abandoned islands that look something like it.

Here are a few fairly random pictures of RL Norway. It's a country with a very varied landscape so I can only cover a fraction of it here of course but you should get the idea.

 

Looks an awful lot like Earth doesn't it?🤭

[ChinRey]

22 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Looks an awful lot like Earth doesn't it?🤭

Or at least like Europe which allegedly is a place on earth.

It reminds me of these two classic Finnish memes. You could easily substitute Sweden or Norway for Finland except we wouldn't have talked about it as loudly as they do. The Finns are the extroverts of the Nordic people after all.

[Silent Mistwalker]

49 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Or at least like Europe which allegedly is a place on earth.

It reminds me of these two classic Finnish memes. You could easily substitute Sweden or Norway for Finland except we wouldn't have talked about it as loudly as they do. The Finns are the extroverts of the Nordic people after all.

While living in the American or British dream homes would be lovely in oh so many ways, I'd still prefer to spend a lifetime in either of the Finnish ones although, my dream home is portable.

[Persephone Emerald]

4 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Isn't that the one where they recreated the French Quarter mainly? If it is, it's the one I was trying to remember the name of. It was an almost exact replica of the square with the basilica and everything. Best reproduction I've seen in SL in 18 years.

No, New Toulouse is the French Quarter in one sim and a swampy residential area in the adjacent sm. It's a Historical setting placed between the turn of the last century and the 1930's, with a nice miniature version of the historic New Orleans cemetery, including Marie Laveaux's tomb. It's casual RP, with lots of social events, including a Mardi Gras parade put on by residents and seasonal storms and flooding. There are also sometimes zombies in the swamp. Tinies, furries and vampires are welcome.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Magnus Brody]

The Coeur di Amalfi with a replica of the Cathedral di Amalfi, part of the Ville de Coeur, and Brody Castle, replica of the rl Brodie Castle, in the Highlands of Scotland in Second Life.  The Highlands also contain other replicas of buildings in the rl Highlands: Beaufort House, Aldourie Castle, the Loch Ness Exhibition Centre, the Loch Ness Inn and more.

[Silent Mistwalker]

55 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

No, New Toulouse is the French Quarter in one sim and a swampy residential area in the adjacent sm. It's a Historical setting placed between the turn of the last century and the 1930's, with a nice miniature version of the historic New Orleans cemetery, including Marie Laveaux's tomb. It's casual RP, with lots of social events, including a Mardi Gras parade put on by residents and seasonal storms and flooding. There are also sometimes zombies in the swamp. Tinies, furries and vampires are welcome.

That's the one then. Don't know why you said no. 

[Persephone Emerald]

^ Because it's not an almost exact replica of Jackson Square and the St. Louis Cathedral.  There was another sim that did have that, but I don't think it still exists in SL.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Madelaine McMasters]

Thank you all for your suggestions. Even if Milla is unable to scrounge up enough respondents for her research, I've got a list of places to visit ;-).

You guys rock!!!