I decided to take a break from blogging tonight. Instead, I took a busman’s holiday on Second Life. And, I got caught up trying to find out what had happened to Sandbox Island? I’m talking with a couple of scripters – a beautiful, pink, dancing robot with a big bust, and a taciturn scripter with a flatulent, but quite elegant, AV bot, and a lot of scripting power at his finger tips. I’m the one with the foxy face.
What did happen to Sandbox Island? A whole sim just vanished. Apparently that doesn’t happen very often on SL. I have scanned the SL blog and found no answers. But, the speculation on SL is that it is definitely not something the Lindens would have done (perhaps an errant architectural prim?). Sandbox Island was a wild and woolly place in its day.
I first went there to try out my newbie scripting skills and build a portable media player. Sandboxes are where you can try out your building skills, even if you don’t own land. Within minutes I was blasted onto another part of the grid by an enormous arsenal of heavy weapons, and my (not even working yet) media player vanished for good!
But, since then, I have learned to sit (if you sit on a prim you can’t be blasted off your location by any of the enormous inventory of weapons that are experimented with in some sand box locations). Also, it is wise (anywhere RL or SL) to save frequently a script you are working, so it can’t be sabotaged. Not all sandboxes are dominated by war games though. Some are very peaceful and fanciful like The Dreams. But, sometimes you find out the culture of a particular sand box the hard way!
Spiritual communities and peace projects are growing on SL. The Buddhist Shrine at Varosha is very beautiful, and a Buddhadharma Island is in beta. But, if you want to practice your building skills in a strange sandbox, and you don’t know how to build a protection dome, just sit tight on a prim when the Griefers come your way.
Thu, Mar 8, 2007