Masen Keep Commons - Photo Blog

Hey everyone... just stopping by to offer some interior shots of the recent updates at Fort Masen.  If you didn't catch the blog from a few days ago, there's some new content there... including quests and new digsites.

Christmas Millionaire - Photo Blog

Noticeboard: GZModels Holiday Sale

From the AW Forums:

GZModels is pleased to announce its Holiday Sale. Starting Nov 26th through 11:59 pm January 2nd, 2012, all models in GZModels world will be 25% off. While you are there don't forget to check out out latest arrival, Hibiscus Bushes. These gorgeous plants have just arrived from the tropical regions of VR to grace your world with beauty and color. Fifteen varieties to choose from in a wide range of colors. GZModels! Where the magic of modeling come to life. We believe it's the little details that breathe life into a world. ;o)

Teleport: GZModels World

SW City Interactive November Updates

Hey everyone!  I've been hard at work on SW City Interactive this week, and I have some updates I'd like to share.

November Changelog
QUESTS: (4)
'Coaxing Spirits'

• Descritpion: A large Hotep idol is blocking your path to progress deeper into the Keep, and you have been tasked to find out what happened.
• Prereq: Completed 'Opening the Gate'
• Find the spirit within the Masen Keep Commons to begin!

'Unearthing Statuettes'
'Unearthing the Bronze Statue'
'Unearthing Cannons'

• Description: An unlikely friend within the Historical Society is working with the Hyokos to protect their culture, while simultaneously recovering Imperial artifacts to appease the society's patrons.
• Prereq: Completed 'Opening the Gate'
• These 3 quests are repeatable
• Speak with the Gray in the Fort Masen Historical Society to begin!

DIGSITES: (2)
Masen Keep Commons

    * Just beyond the foreboding doors of Masen Keep lies the Commons, an open space that was once used for trade and commerce.  After the siege, the space was converted into a hall of reverence and worship... focused on a massive idol that was placed in front of an old passageway.  Many artifacts and personal items of the inhabitants still remain.

• 20 digging nodes
• Two collectible sets, and a handful of other valuable items
• ~20 new items to collect and trade with other players!

Masen Keep Cannons

• The interior cannons were once Fort Masen's last line of defense, which ultimately proved futile during the Siege.  The damaged remains were left as a testament to the Imperial Army's might, and have been long forgotten on the ledges and rafters that loom over the Commons.
•  6 digging nodes -- each node takes a large amount of time credits and stamina
• One collectible set

BUGFIXES:

    * Players who completed 'Opening the Gate' before November will need to speak with the Gatekeeper at his location in the Commons.  Their version of the digging permit was bugged and he will swap them.
    * A profile icon is available in the digsite -- it was previously in the digging loot table, but that proved to be problematic so it is now a stand-alone, hidden item in the area.
    * Several new NPCs were missing an NPC image, and this has been corrected since they went live.
    * (Thanks to Comit for helping with many of the bugs, some of which weren't so much bugs as they were me being dum )

There's not really a ton left to do in order to get this done... so I may work on this again over Christmas.  Until then, this should be plenty to occupy anyone who happens to come across it.

More on Fort Masen: http://www.swcity.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=SWC.FortMasen

Event - Airship Tours to Visit Off World

TenYearsGone's Airship Tours continue this weekend, visiting Off World in Alphaworld.  Off World moved to Pata world and also America world some time in 2007 so I'm not sure if the tour will continue there or not, but the Alphaworld site should offer plenty to see!

Here's the tour announcement from the AWForums:

This week, Airship Tours is going to Off World. You will want to have your sounds on for this one, because this build is a feast for your ears as well as your eyes. Motion is everywhere, from traffic in the street to aircraft in the sky. The futuristic theme is consistant throughout, reminding me a bit of Blade Runner. I am particularly fond of one build , clearly inspired by Buckmister Fuller ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller ). The work with primatives is incredible.

The tour will take place Saturday November 12th, at 8pm, VRT.

Gather at http://objects.activeworlds.com/cgi-...4.00E_0.1a_180

Off World has a rich background lore and if you're planning on attending, I would encourage you to visit their storyline blog and immerse yourself in their universe.  The blog offers a fictional background on many of the builds that you will visit, and this knowledge will certainly enhance the quality of your visit!

Related Links

• Off World in Active Worlds - Story Blog
• ActiveWiki - Off World
• Teleport - Off World in Alphaworld

Noticeboard: Pelican3D Citizenship Promotion

Pelican3D is making a generous offer for AW users that are actively recruiting new citizens...

For ANYONE who recruits 3 NEW people to become cttizens between Dec. 1st 2011 and Mar 1st 2012, they will receive a $100.00 gift certificate to pelican3d models (standard terms of agreement apply). No deceptions allowed. Citizenship must be from a tourist who hasnt been a citizen before. Citizenships will be authenticated thru AWI.

The offer certainly sounds generous, as $100 can get you quite a few nice objects and even some very complete sets!

As an aside, these are the sorts of promotions that AWI would stand to benefit from if they took the initiative to reach out to their supporters.  AW benefits from the citizenship referrals, Pelican benefits from good publicity and increased exposure, and the people actively participating in a market in AW increases. What's not to like?

From my Teleports List: Seiya's Orchard Home

BuildCity - Verdant Valley - Seiya's Orchard Home (Plot #24)

Builder: Seiya

Teleport: BuildCity 6.212n 28.272e 0.3a 0

Jump Point: ^jump Seiya's Home

While I was performing maintenance on BuildCity last week, one of my goals was to memorialize Seiya's work in the world.  Following her passing, many of her builds were visited and highlighted by the community, and I expect this one may not have gotten much attention due to its location.

Seiya was among the first set of builders in BuildCity's first (and only) competitive session during the Virtual Game Festival 2010.  BuildCity challengers players to create a build within a themed community, and the builder is assigned specific tasks to guide the themes and motifs of the build, or otherwise add to the challenge of creating the build.  Seiya picked an especially challenging plot, where the task given was to build a two-story home within an orchard... in 3 hours.

When I was generating tasks for the plots in Verdant Valley, I expected this plot to be filled by a simple wood home and some terrible sprite trees.  Seiya took that thought and turned it on its head, and then crafted a building under it.  In something of a poetic gesture, Seiya wasn't satisfied with the house and the orchard being two separate components.  Why couldn't the orchard BE the house?

And so it was -- in three hours, a metallic outcropping appeared on the site, covered by the canopy of many small trees on the roof.  The build is then bisected near its midpoint, and a secondary hill offers some geometric contrast at an angle.  Seiya's design is brilliant not simply in its quick conception, but as well as its execution, and to me the exhibition of this particular piece is not the piece itself, but rather the designer.  Seiya's sharp "design wit" in the face of challenge, combined with the masterful crafting of geometry, worked with an intense ethic in a small window of time to produce an intriguing concept and execute it with extreme clarity.

A metallic outcropping terminates the hill.

The Orchard Home is a good example of the intrigue of her work -- her ideas, that they were executed in her builds and that you could clearly see what she was going for in the builds themselves.  Take some time to sample more of her work, and you'll notice this trend.  Her ideas, concepts, motivations, and even humor can be found in the carefully sculpted geometries that she made, and they take on a different identity because of that.  They are expressive of Seiya's personality, and since the time of her passing this is all the more apparent in her work.  We may never share another conversation, but in the Orchard Home, I can see her ideas.  Her brilliance.

A back staircase offers access to the orchard above.

In that sense, perhaps 'memorialize' was not quite the correct term earlier, because even though Seiya may be gone... what she left behind is more characteristic of who she was than any monument or obituary could hope to be. And so it is, I've decided to write this today instead of making a marker in BuildCity, and whenever I visit the Orchard Home, I will be able to enjoy the beautiful expression that my friend left behind.

So What Happened to the Cy Awards?

The Cy Awards are under new management this year, and some promotional material came out in September, but since then I don't think there's been a public peep about the ceremony.  The awards were set for this Fall, which is all well and good, but we're starting to run out of Fall.  Soon after, we'll run out of 2011.

Anyone know anything new? :)