Devin Heartsong

Pretty much this, especially the statements up where the quote starts! Personally, I feel the Stilt homes demo area we've seen shows that the Moles have listened to the older complaints that the houseboat areas in Belli are packed too tightly for some people's tastes as long-term residents of Belli. I can resonate with that complaint, but realize it's a personal, subjective opinion and other people might like the density and crowded feel of the houseboats. But it's clear that the new Stilt homes layout and landscaping is a thoughtful attempt by the moles to give easy water/boating access to as many people as possible while also giving us a similar sense of separation and personal space as found in the Traditional, Victorian, and Cabin regions. I for one will be playing the Game of Homes to find a nice Stilt Home. It will be nice to have a sailboat rezzed out and ready to go again. And, FWIW.... I just can't with mainland any more. It's been a full year in Bellisseria and I'm spoiled by just living in a cohesive and gorgeous landscape. With tons of driving, boating, aerial, walking, jogging, horse riding access/scenery, and a great community. I think LL understands this is the core attraction of Belli now, though. I think they've been disabused of the notion that it's just a place for starter homes and most people will move on eventually to something on the mainland.

aDORable!

Yeah, after a year of playing Game of Homes, this one is definitely a "forever" home. For now, anyway? 😄

The Game of Homes gods have smiled upon me and Kat for my birthday. 🙂

Nothing but love and support. Eva. I'm so sorry. Anything I can do to help, don't hesitate to reach out. ❤️

Dawwwwwww! I remember Foxy Luscious telling me about meeting you that day and enjoying one of your cupcakes!

Dawwww! Thank YOU! And everyone who helped to make it, including all the "actors" and "extras" who participated! BTW, this be Baphy ^.^ Name change r sneakeh!

I've set out a Hot Air Balloon rezzer at the following parcels. It seats 4 AVs with cute animations, is NOT ginormously large, can fly fast enough to avoid the 15-second warning, and is heckin' easy (and smooth) to fly. E and C (or page up/down) plus the normal WASD or arrow keys. It's great for sightseeing along waterways, or flying higher and going overland. It will self-destruct after every one jumps out, even in a spot where you have rez rights, so no worries about leaving junk objects anywhere. Just click the white sign, then hop in and go! New mountain lodge regions http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wildecross/18/73/53 Victorian region on the border between North and South Belli, right on the edge of "Mole National Park" http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Banebury/88/226/43 The huge camper region connected to Campwich Lodge http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lake Tatakaka/165/30/37

Stumbled upon both Slenderman and Evangeline at the same time. Lucky!

We miss living next to the Pink Motel! But we're still rolling on lodges, so who knows? 😘 Meanwhile, we're sitting on this lovely view with a private swimming hole right off our front porch, for laps in the morning! Also we're just a short 5-minute scenic drive from the rez zone in Dos Hermanos where you can launch sailboats for the big interior sailing lake!

(OOC) Much love! May you and everyone else here be safe and may your loved ones all be safe! (Back in character) Please don't wreck my train again! That was skeery!

Awwoooooooooo Werewolves of Belli Awwoooooooooo

There's a 50L weekend sale Hot Air Balloon called the "Boomerang" that is super cute, flies smoothly, is quiet, isn't janky, doesn't have a huge oversized balloon that's hard to see around, seats 4 AVs with cute poses, and comes as a cute 3 LI rezzer. The balloon itself is only 16 LI when rezzed, so you only need 19 LI total on your parcel to let as many friends as you want (and the public) rez and fly balloons. It's absolutely the best hot air balloon for sightseeing over Belli that I've found so far. Here's the link: https://www.seraphimsl.com/2020/03/14/get-your-shop-on-with-wanderlust-weekend/

The little green tram you see in a lot of my screenshots above also auto-flips when stopped by the switches on the rails. If the maker of any given train doesn't give you a config option to turn that behavior off (and "just stop"), it's not really a hardship to work around. When I get flipped like that, I simply stop right away. Then manually flip myself again to be facing the red light again. Then I simply wait until the light (eventually) turns green and then I manually start moving the train again. @Squeaky Mole has said that there's nothing they can do to automatically deal with trains that auto-flip. Again, it's not an issue as long as you aren't AFK and then travel down the tracks a long way in the wrong direction. If you stop yourself in a reasonable time and flip around, you'll be fine and won't mess up the signal system.

Yes, please please please keep the water features. The new Vic regions being being built out to the east right now are very plain and repetitive without all the typical water features and ponds and canals we have all over the earlier Vic regions.

Found a third rez zone today. This one's directly at a train station platform. It's in SSPE1058 out in the new continental chunk they're building out on the east side of Bellisseria. I'll add the landmark to the list of rez zones in the OP. At the time of this post (7-Mar-2020), the light facing West out of the rez zone is red, which means you should only head East out of this rez zone. The lights facing East are currently orange. I'm sure this will all change within a few more weeks. Third rez zone in SSPE1058: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/SSPE1058/60/11/49

Two video demonstrations of things that might confuse you at first until you get used to the SLRR rail system in Belli. Bellisseria SLRR Tip #1 At this date (6-Mar-2020), you can exit in either direction from the SLRR rez zone in Pugwash, Bellisseria. By default your train will auto-orient to head north out of the rez zone, but if you instead flip your train and head south instead, you'll end up on a nice, long endless loop counter-clockwise all through the lower "boot" section of Northern Belli. The way to break out of this loop and head into Southern Belli is demonstrated in the video for Bellisseria SLRR Tip #2. Bellisseria SLRR Tip #2 At this date (6-Mar-2020), the 3-way intersection in Extraordinary, Bellisseria can be a little confusing. All three entrances from all 3 directions are currently flashing orange lights, which means this region isn't part of the finished switching system. And the user-interactable metal green/red ball switches under each light aren't actually working yet. But there IS a simple way to control which direction you take through this intersection! By default, if you take the South exit from the Pugwash rez zone to start the endless counter-clockwise loop through lower Northern Belli (per the video for SLRR Tip #1), you'll approach this 3-way intersection from the West, heading East on the track. And you will continue to head straight through to the East, as shown in the video. But this keeps you on an endless loop in Northern Belli (at the time this video was made). And you might not want that! How do you instead take the rightward branch that will send you towards the big 4-track switching yard, then past the Shallow Springs station right across from Mole National Park, and then onward into Southern Belli and down through the Victorian section towards the Red Hook rez zone? Well, it's simple and the video shows you how. Just pass straight through the 3-way towards the east. Then stop, flip your train around, and start moving again. This time as you enter the 3-way heading WEST, you'll take the left branch and start heading south.

@Kitten Kaos just whipped up a spiffy group logo for us! It features @foneco Zuzu's (and @Saphyre Cyberstar's) SUPER COOL Bellisseria-themed locomotive. Which is free and available to grab at the Bellisseria Travelers Club headquarters at https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Ruthsburg/26/5/23 . Look for the glass display cabinet with the little vehicle models inside, right next to the Guestbook table. Touch the cabinet to download a bunch of great free vehicles. The train shown in the logo is called Opensource V2.6.0 real old locomotive.

I've spent a lot of time this past week trying to really understand the SLRR system in Bellisseria. I've made some mistakes, and had some good interactions and advice from @Squeaky Mole, our current railroad baron and technogician! If you want to drive trains/trolleys/trams etc. around the rails in Bellisseria, here are some general tips and advice. Note that we also have an in-world group named Bellisseria SLRR Riders that you can join for chat, advice, asking around whether some area of track might be bugged, setting up group outings/tours, and so on. secondlife:///app/group/eaf057e4-2194-3b1e-6bf1-5ea819ca4250/about Helpful tips and advice The SLRR system in Bellisseria is still in a state of development, so there might be some buggy switch lights at certain branches at any given time. If you're reasonably certain that a switch isn't working correctly, reach out to Squeaky Mole and as time permits they'll try to debug it. (You can also report a possibly broken switch here in this thread and others can try to test and corroborate that it's broken. Generally, switch lights that are red or green indicate a section of track that is finished and should be working correctly. These sections have switching logic that is meant to keep only one train on a single track section at a time, so that there are no collisions. (Although many trains run phantom so you won't actually collide in many cases.) However, switch lights that are orange indicate unfinished sections of track. There is no switching logic here, and you travel into an orange section of track you might encounter other trains or unfinished sections that loop or terminate in unpredictable ways. However, some of these might eventually merge back into finished sections of track, so don't be afraid to explore sections that are currently in an "orange" state. You should NOT rez your train just anywhere random on the track! (Like, in your house parcel and then sliding the train over onto the track.) Doing this will break the switching system and mess up other trains that might be on the tracks. You should only rez your trains in one of the designated rez zones on the track itself (listed further below). This ensures that the switching system is aware of your train and tries to coordinate your movement correctly to avoid collision with other trains in the finished track sections. You should NOT "side-edit' your train onto a parallel track (or further ahead in the same track) near a switching section to force your way through a RED switch light! Instead, just stop and wait for the light to turn green! The switching system turns the lights red and stops your train when there is a train somewhere on the section ahead of you--even if you can't see it when camming ahead, or by looking for green dots on the big map. There are hidden sensors on the approaches to every switch, and if you start approaching on the correct side (per flow of traffic), but but then in the middle side-edit yourself over and approach the other incorrect side, you'll break the switch logic in that region and adjoining regions for a period of time. (There is an automatic safety reset to fix such broken switches eventually.) Therefore, be patient at red lights! You're sharing the track with other people! You might need to sit for 5 minutes (or more) while you wait for the section ahead to clear and the light to turn green! Even if you open the big map and look for green dots along the track in front of you, trains will usually not be visible. The switch light isn't potentially broken unless you sit there for 10-15 minutes or longer and the light never turns green. Don't pause your train for a long time on the tracks (or at stations). When you are in a track section, you are preventing the switching system from letting others into that same track section. So don't just sit still on a section of track for longer than necessary to let new passengers get on/off at a station or whatever. Keep the lines moving, so that you aren't keeping other trains stuck waiting at red signal lights any longer than necessary! Watch the signal lights as you approach them and check their state from fairly far away. Because of typical region/browser lag, the signal light ahead might be green while you are still 40 meters away, but turn red as you get closer to it. Your train should still move through the switch okay when this happens; it's just lag causing the light turn to turn red (affecting the next train behind you) before you've had time to pass through yourself. Most SLRR trains will automatically snap over to the track and twist themselves to face in the correct 'flow of traffic' direction when you rez them out in a designate rez zone next to the track. Just hop in and go! Some rez zones will allow you to exit in either direction. For example, if you rez a train and the light in front of the train is red, but their is another light behind you that is green, you can flip your train and just head out in the direction of the green light if you don't want to wait for the original light to turn green. There are some "Y" intersections where you have user control over which direction you take through the intersection. These typically have a small round green/red metal switch sitting about 6 feet off the ground near one side of the switch light. If present, you should be able to stop the train and touch them to change the rail switch there to take you in the direction you want to go. Watch the little red/white semaphore flags near such switches to tell which direction the switch will take you. When the semaphore is tilted upward, that indicates which track you'll follow if you pass through the intersection. Rez zones (at the date this was posted) West side of lower Northern Bellisseria, just above the sandy beach camper area http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Pugwash/199/48/23 Extreme south-east corner of Southern Bellisseria http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Red Hook/94/147/34 Those are the basics for now! Join the group so you can chat with other engineers that might be on the tracks with you! Be patient with our fine moles (and especially with Squeaky Mole) if you encounter bugs. The moles are juggling a lot of priorities as they build out Bellisseria and the rail system isn't always the hot priority at any given moment. See you on the tracks!

Many thanks to our keeper of the Belli RR ❤️

Helping Squeaky debug the branch switches in Banebury, which have apparently not been working right for a while now. Safety is important! That's me in the train sitting safely down the tracks in the shade drinking some iced tea, while @Squeaky Mole hammers on the tracks and switches in the hot Bellisseria sun. OSHA would be proud of Squeaky's attention to roadside safety!

Went past Slenderman on the tracks and promptly crashed off a broken train trestle.

One more small tip. This might be a personal anecdote and not a true mechanic, but twice now I've approached red lights and slowed down and stopped right in front of them. Twice, after stopping like that right in front of them, they would turn green pretty quickly and I could start up again and proceed without issue. By contrast, when I've just gone plummeting at medium to fast speeds into a red light, my train has simply stopped (and flipped around because it's a model that does that when stopped by a switch). So.... maybe approaching slowly and stopping just in front of the switch gives the system time to react to your presence? Could be simple observation error on my part, but try it out!