Chic at Ebbe's Place

We have been told that work will continue on SL 1.0 albeit with a smaller team. I believe that is a truthful statement mostly because work has continued for many months while the major energies were spent on the new world. We have see new features. Some may be in part an overflow from work on the new grid. That's good enough.

One of the bits of newness is the Portal Park. If you have ever been a Linden Realms fan, you know that the Realms portal was very minimalistic. There were plenty of folks standing around and chatting, but it wasn't because of the surroundings.

The new Portal Park is much more inviting. It includes one path to the Realms (we should say "Realm" now and I will get to that). Another path leads to the older icy quest, one to a Tea Party (Alice Style), one to a conversation area, one to The Wilderniess (premium), one to the Cornfield (new) and a not quite finished one that looks interesting but probably will include guns which isn't my thing. Oh, and let's not forget the land of the gnomes (not really sure what that is for but cute).

When you teleport using your old Linden Realms landmark, you arrive at the new portal. If you are headed for The Realms, you simply find the right path and continue.

And here is where it gets a little dicey. There is now only ONE Linden Realm --  replacing the many versions of Tyrah's. The current Realm has always been there just not accessible to the general public; now and then you might have seen a green dot or two (supposedly Lindens at work or play high above the landscape). This new realm wasn't crowded the two times I visited -- once Friday eve and once Saturday afternoon. It didn't take me too long to figure out why.

The Realms have been broken pretty much continuously from the time of their unveiling. First the quest disappeared. Then there were griefers, griefers everywhere. Then the areas would be "close for repairs" -- most often without notice. Then after cleaning up the cheaters (loud clapping here) there was a new twist. Instead of closing the portals, they just took away a lot of the crystals. Actually, a pretty good plan if you are trying to keep folks happy AND save money.

And here's the kicker. There were originally (at least when I first ventured over with a mesh viewer) FOUR portal parks that lead to six different instances of Tyrah's. Then maybe a year ago that switched to TWO portal parks and four instances -- and NOW there are two portals that lead to the same single instance  -- THE REALM :D.   OK, not all that bad except that the once instance is definitely broken. Many areas that "should" have crystals are barren. There aren't many folks there either. Why would there be?

One advantage SL had over the other smaller grids was that there was a way for new folks to make a little money. They had to work pretty hard; even if you knew where the crystals should appear and at what time, the average take was only about 25 linden an hour. Lots of folks; only so many crystals.

So now that is gone.