Nika Talaj

I see two more sets of 6-region Ranch tiles. That brings the number of Ranch regions in easily identified tiles up to 36, and probably there's more - I'm not going to look for any more. This goes to explain how the moles have been able to so quickly assemble new swathes of ranchland. This tile: Is the same as this tile: and THIS tile: is the same as THIS tile: In non-Ranch news, a new set of 3 regions has appeared up in the SSP area: And work is rapidly progressing now on Vic Island.

I like it the way it is, just small ponds, sparse landscaping. It says RANCH to me, and what you seem to be after is more one of those cute little towns on the edge of farm country in Kansas, you know? Little bridges, creeks winding through shady streets, apple trees. That's a perfectly fine thing to do with your own parcel, but I'd rather the Linden landscaping stayed sparse. I have hopes that once the holiday madness is over, some folks will take down their immense pools and random animesh globs and do something more creative. If I had a ranch parcel, I would make the grass terrain a little less verdant and make a small Southwestern ranch. Use the L-shaped home and build a colonnade, closing it in on 3 sides. Make a poplar wind screen for the house, and put a big tree that grows in dry ground in the enclosed area. Make that area seem like a shady oasis for the family, hopefully with a kitchen garden. The rest of the property visibly dry. Scrub grass. Small corn field. Tiny stable. One cow chewing its cud with MAYBE a calf, a non-animesh draft horse, and a border collie wanderer. I would put a tiny, mission-style church on the dirt road winding in from the property gate to the house. If I had prims, I would put out a small farm stand. Actually, I have almost all the stuff to build this out! I just don't have the budget for a PP membership, lol! OR If you're in a hilly area, make a vineyard/family winery. There was a great vineyard in The Grove. OR Make a frontier preacher's property. Make a large shed into a makeshift church, with an old piano. Ragged clothes on the line. Broken toys around a not particularly well-kept little house. Failed garden. Old car. Small graveyard behind the 'church'. Religious signs on the fenceposts. OR Go upscale. Get a shell for one of the bigger houses, spiff it up. Formal landscaping. Large paddock with props for dressage, nice stable with a couple of rideable Lipizzaners (they do exist in SL). Put on shows! There is a whole lot one could do with the theme just as it is.

I was surprised at how nice this Vic is. West-facing, good privacy, nice view, good flowers. Only 14 homes in the region, and a rez zone next to water a few houses away. Letting it go in a few minutes at 3:45 SL time. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tingsbury/183/137/23

I think that would be terrific. But LHs are denser than this idea would support, and we've been told repeatedly that the density is required for LL to make money on Premiums. LL is aware of the charm of towns, I think - that's why Bay City exists. But Bay City had no enforceable covenant, so drifted away from a cohesive "small town" feel. Maybe someday there will be a 2048 theme that is small towns? It would be charming to have the Ranches ringed by small towns, lol! How many satellite shops are there nowadays? There are many reasons why satellite shops have been replaced by events. An event kiosk presents very few items, so is a LOT easier to update than a satellite shop, with 4 walls to fill. Also, you can just sit out a week or a month of an event, and not pay tier during that time. And, events generate a lot of traffic, nearly all of which have Lindens to spend. I don't think there is a "just for Belli" event, is there? Even though some major stores do releases targeted for new Belli themes. Let me go wild and imagine a 2-region event - 1 region a normal event region, and an adjacent region that's a copy of BelliDemo that ALSO has rezzers for addon makers. [Not that I think LL would welcome that, lol]. I'm never confident, when I do a Marketplace search for an addon, that I've found all of them.

Yep. The way I'd like to do it is from your own home, I think that'd be fun. Of course there would be limited destinations. Altho, it wouldn't be IMPOSSIBLE to do sky taxis to a given street address, actually. So long as people adhere to covenant re: security orbs.

Like I said above, this has been tried and tried again, in tight communities, and I've never seen it work for more than a year. So ... LL would have to think creatively about how to keep such areas vital. I like Sean's idea of having a type of LH that is just a small shop, maybe with one room of living space, and presumably the ability to have a skybox, on a region that is all small shops. Not with any goal of fostering community, just as a different form of LH Premium benefit, for people who want to get into commerce on a small scale. Ugh, endlessly roaming empty vehicles. The pods on mainland always make regions feel MORE empty, not less empty, to me. YMMV; I know some people like them. However, I have to say that if there were a system of ON-CALL ferries, taxis, and maybe trains to take folks to nearby destinations, I'd totally be down with that. In fact, the prospect of putting together such a system has tempted me more than once to apply to be a mole, lol!

I actually like the 'random choice' scheme, I get a free tour of Belli along with a new home Just to clarify exactly how it works, you get 5 attempts to claim a Linden Home every 24 hours. However, it times each attempt separately, so that if you abandon a house at 2:00pm, then claim another and abandon that one at 3pm, then the next day at 2PM you get to make a try, and a 3PM a second try. Premium Plus allows you to submit a support ticket for the exact parcel you want, so long as its region is released. (That is, the region must not have SSP in front of the name). You must not already have a Linden Home when you submit the ticket, until you hear back from LL about it. It is wise to specify a 2nd and even 3rd choice in the ticket, in case someone else gets the parcel you chose. I hear rumors that they only fulfil Premium Plus tickets on weekdays. I would expect PP ticket processing to be particularly slow until Wednesday this week, as it is a holiday in the US.

I'm a little confused, what you are asking for? As Persephone pointed out, it is against covenant to use a LH as an actual place of business, where you sell anything or collect tips for the build. But, all over SL, people use LHs as "faux" businesses already. Art galleries, cool cafes, travel agencies, a dog shelter - those all sound like fun faux businesses. I had a olde maritime inn with pub for a while. LL has their own bicycle-themed cafe - "Java Cycle"? in an open floor plan ... Addams, is it? So, are you interested in a Belli region that is all "faux" businesses, laid out like a town center? Or would you rather have, say, one 'style' home for each theme that is a shop (that seems to me to be begging for convenant infringement). Or are you asking for nice looking Linden commercial space, where you sell things? There were thots in the past about setting Millbank up as an open-air market, but so far the moles use it just for fun seasonal builds. So, what you want is a Commercial Shop region, perhaps part of a group of such regions, where you could buy a small commercial space? I don't see that that would need to be part of Belli, right? Sort of a permanent Shop and Hop, maybe? I've been in two private estates where the owners created really nice town centers with commercial space. One was urban, one medieval/fantasy. The thinking seemed to be that it would benefit the merchants, having a built-in clientele interested in that theme. And also it would be interesting for the residential residents, who generated the bulk of the estate income. Both areas ultimately failed ... I think its a fallacy that SL residents ever wander around the streets where they live, shopping. That's just not how shopping is done in SL, and besides, you need a much bigger target clientele to make a business successful in SL.

Fyi: all 10 of the new Ranch regions (west of Whiplash, not showing on map yet) have been released, and they are going fast.

I can see repeat regions being used in the Ranch area, and in fact one "tile" jumped out at me. This helps the moles build out Ranches quickly. The 10 new regions east of Whiplash appeared fully built out BOOM. (not showing on map yet). is the same as: I haven't tracked down other tiles, but its easy to see that Hundred Prim Woods is the same as Pinto Pastures, Oak Knob is the same as Clemente, etc..

Yup, at the moment there are 10 new Ranch regions (west of the currently released ones) being built. Not yet ready for release, but homes and landscaping look like they're complete. The easiest way to tell how many of a theme is left is to zip through the queue with a couple of hoppers. When you start getting a lot of repeats, that's about how deep the queue is. Right now, tho, there are zero Ranches on the land page. Been a while since I've had hoppers, tho! Downsizing accounts is still in process ...

I need to upgrade my LSL development environment. Which IDE/plugins are your favorites? The last thread I see about this is from 2021, and is quite short. I don't suppose there are any whose syntax checking is updated as commands are added?

I read it. No changes specific to the ranches, so still 2. Crossing my fingers it stays that way.

Lol, this thread! I'm choosing not to regard Thousand Island, Blue Cheese, or Balsamic Vinaigrette as hints as to what the themes might actually be, because ... that way lies madness. Are we ignoring the ACTUAL hint Patch mentioned? He's cautioning us that the picture might not show the NEXT theme, but any of the next three. Do you buy it? Or do you think that we've gotten too close in our guesses and he's trying to misdirect us, because Patch? I wonder if there's a few regions somewhere covered with mole prototypes of new themes. THAT would be a fun place to visit!

People who are looking for a Ranch to love, you'll need luck tonight! I noticed none were showing on the land page, so thinking there might be queue weirdness going on, I went inworld and TP'd around several Ranch regions. Did not see a single unclaimed parcel. That was quick! I'm sure parcels will free up on and off, but there may not be a huge choice for a while. Another thing I observed while zipping around: Most houses are placed to guarantee some amount of privacy, but the large yards generally are not. This gives the theme more of an "open range" feel, yay! But it also means that Ranches will look a lot better to neighbors and passersby if owners use high-LOD items outdoors. Maybe those older animals would be best left in their inventory barn!

So ... this would be "Thousand Island"? Stucco exterior ... exterior molding detail up high ... something like exterior carved or mosaic details on purple home in back ... arched doorways ... rectangular windows ... Keep in mind that I am ALWAYS wrong when guessing themes .... Mediterranean?

Agreed, this theme is not about the water. The small ponds here and there are nice, but more for the soundscape than the visuals, for me. I wandered around a LOT yesterday, and found I liked the parcels up on the hills also. With such large parcels, having a long view over the landscape is really cool. If I had one with a sloped backyard, I might be tempted to put in my own pond, with ducks and pond sounds. I have a lot to do on my current properties, so won't be getting a ranch now. Tempting, because we had a large ranch long ago, and it would be fun to repurpose/update some of those items and ideas. But PP is expensive, so I won't do it until I'm ready to work on it. Remember, folks, at the BelliDemo region you can change the ranch (and all the demo LHs) to all models for that theme, even if you're not Premium.

Absolutely, just TP there. Region "Overall" is where the Community Center is likely to be. I spent hours yesterday just wandering around. Turns out it's fun to be a cow!

It is very painful. When my SL partner of 13 years passed away, I was devastated, both in SL and RL. We never met in RL, but knew a LOT about each others' RLs. I spoke to his wife often and we exchanged recipes, lol. He & I spoke nearly every night, during a very difficult time in my life. It is a huge loss, I agree, and has changed both my SL and RL. Many people in SL had known us as a couple, and respected him greatly, and their support helped me a lot. Time heals the pain, but a relationship as deep as yours cannot be simply replicated, I agree. I don't look to have a relationship like that in SL ever again. I am reaching out more in RL.

Well, then, perhaps more accomplished builders from other countries need to become moles. I didn't notice any outcry that Sakura is inauthentic; possibly because some of the moles were able to bring their own cultural experience to the project. LL made it clear that they are hiring

I think the message is that you can a few higher quality items (e.g. with GREAT LODs, or maybe an animesh animal) because you have a higher prim count available to you.

Is that a little burro I see? I just found "Brighty of the Grand Canyon" on my bookshelves (I LOVE kids' books), and I'd love to have a burro! I would make little panniers for him!

I love that photo too! I find it ... suggestive ... that Patch opted to be dropped into a Ranch pond (along with a cow, of course, MOO) from a flying saucer. Gives me hope that Thousand Island ... or Blue Cheese ... or maybe the new Zindra theme? ... might be SciFi!

Are you sure? I heard that they were not going to build more adult land in the current Zindra theme, but that they are planning to build more Adult land with an updated look. I came away not sure if that would be part of Zindra or in another, new area. I also got the impression that this plan was in its early stages, but I don't think Patch said anything about time frame.

PP cannot submit ranch tickets until July 10th.