Expedition To The New Southeastern Continent

After reading reports on the new southeastern continent, I contacted a few folks to see if they wanted to go check out the area as well. Joining me were Loki Pico, Osprey Therian, Ilianexsi Sojourner and Huns Valen. What follows here are our first impressions of the new continent the Lindens have recently revealed.

Here we are at the briefing looking over the Lindens' satellite image of the new land mass.


I had picked out a large beach in the new Yongnam region as a starting place on the map. There looked to be a large bay there and we were anticipating some sailing as part of our journey. We weren't able to fly or sail to the new continent as it is not connected to the mainland. We would have to teleport in. Not knowing what to expect, I asked Huns to port first, scout the area out and find a suitable area to use as a base camp. After about 10 minutes he signaled us to join him. We ported in to a platform he established high over the Malra region. We had our base.

It was dusk and Huns had established the base camp high above Malra (as it was over an area that was rezzable). I had prepped my ballon the day before and suggested traveling by air to the Yongnam shore. Huns advised me to rez it on the platform as the area below was a no-script zone.



After we had all boarded, I maneuvered us off the platform and decended to get a better look at the land. I wanted to fly low over it toward Yongnam so we could take some photos. Both Osprey and Ilianexsi were busily snapping shots.

Here's a cool one Osprey took:


Before I knew it we had crashed to the ground! I hadn't checked the elevation before decending and the Malra area was already fairly developed. Lag was hampering my piloting a bit. After a few botched attempts at restarting the balloon Huns came through with his Dominus Shadow. It seats five and we fit perfectly. Loki got our bearings and we headed off to the coast.



From Loki's expedition notes:

Malra had been fairly developed when we arrived. There were already homes and plots for sale there. As we traveled south/southwest toward the shore of Yongnam we found untouched wilderness. We passed quickly over the regions of Yeppeun and Bora. Arriving at the boundary to Yongnam, Huns detected a barrier. We couldn't enter the region. The Lindens had left the area with restricted access. Strangely, we found that it was still possible to teleport in individually. Huns dropped us just south in Seongsil and stayed with the car to give us a quick way out if we needed it. We teleported in.



Something happened to us when we ported to the beach area in Yongnam. Some of us began hallucinating. I was having a hard time making out Ilianexsi clearly. She appeared to be missing most of her hair and one of her horns...



She said that she could only see my goggles (I heard wrong, I guess it was my lantern) and that I was otherwise invisible. What was going on? The place was empty with just the four of us there. Did the barrier have anything to do with this? Why were the Lindens blocking direct access to this region? It began to feel a bit odd. The beach we were at was wide and gently sloped up the hillside, the top of which was sparsely forested wiith pines. What would otherwise have been a pleasant and serene location was, instead, a forlorn shore with an air of dread. We were all creeped out to say the least.

Huns was circling Yongnam's perimeter and monitoring the barrier. I located him southwest of us and shouted for the others to head toward him with me. We had to trek out on foot beyond the barrier and up, so Huns could avoid the no-script zone. Ilia and I spoke breifly about our concerns regarding Yongnam. Something just didn't seem right there.

From Loki's expedition notes:

That beach area was strange indeed! Attached is a snap I took there... as you can see, my hair and horns were visible to me, while I could only tell Salazar's location by the lantern he was carrying. I suspect these strange hallucinations (or whatever they may be) are part of the reason this sim has restricted access... perhaps the Lindens are trying to protect us from (or hide from us?) whatever is causing this phenomenon. At any rate, I'll be interested to have a closer look and see what clues may be found there.

I'd like to say that is a super exploration team. Thanx for sharing the ride with us, I liked the pictures too.

Word has it there's a moratorium on terraforming...

Yep, thought it was a bug, asked Live Help. Guy Linden showed up and was wondering why I couldn't terraform it, then he figured out why.

Thanks Torley. I feel honored that these folks wanted to help with this first expedition. I'm looking forward to more.

After regrouping with Huns in Seongsil, we headed east toward the Gaenari region. I decided to turn on my dayvision so I could get a better view of the surrounding area. The sun was sparkling on the small cove below as we made our way across Gaenari toward Jindalrae. There were grassy rolling hills and pine trees as far as I could see. Lots of water too.



From Loki's expedition notes:


As we made our way toward the interior we came upon a huge mound. Most of it was in Jindalrae, but some was located in the Danbi region to the east. The mound was impressive. It gently rose from the surrounding terrain and was lightly forested. It looks like this continent has seen a lot of erosion.



Something struck us about this particular land feature. It certainly dominated the veiw. Perhaps there is more to this hill than meets the eye. I wasn't the only one who felt that way either...

Expedition chat excerpt:




It was time to move on.

lol I love it looks like you had a great time!

Mar

It is a bunch of empty land very much the same as any new land.

The places that are getting built have a bunch of prims in various vaguely building-like configurations mixed with shiny spheres and deformed torrii and such, in other words it is much like the bulk of the rest of SL.

What is point in going to look at it?

The point is to explore an area where crowds of people haven't settled yet, to see what new terrain or plants might be seen, to enjoy the area while it's still empty, or if nothing else, to get together with like-minded friends and have some fun. Remember fun?

As for me, I think it's important to hold on to that sense of wonder that made us all want to fly around exploring in the first place. If we give in to the problems that each new version inevitably brings, give up and say 'what's the point' and do nothing, we've lost.

One of the main reasons I wanted to go down and check it out was that it is a bunch of new empty land--land that is already getting settled and looks to be eventually colonized in it's entirety. Still fairly unknown. An added benefit is that it's a bit easier to roam around in empty regions, so exploring them when they are new is more enjoyable to me. And it was a hoot to go with a group.

This new continent does have it's own mystery and charm. Puzzling phemonema that we encountered right from the get go and it's own unique landforms and topographical layout. True, many of the flora and soil types look identical to those found on the mainland. That doesn't surprise me. The island is relatively close. Why the most northern tip of the new continent at Yurim (232, 170, 23) is just under 11,000 meters from the mainland. Only about 2 kilometers. It takes a lot of energy to power The Grid. The Lindens have only been able to reveal a very small portion of this world.

I wonder if the new continent will move at all? One never knows with the unpredictable plate tectonics folks have witnessed in the past. It could end up right next to the mainland. We'll have to watch it.

The areas being settled (photos to come) do indeed look familair. It could be an influx of new arrivals or more established residents moving on. I haven't studied the pattern too much yet. I think Loki said that there were quite a few 512 plots for sale, so it might be firstlanders. It may be awhile before something truly unique emerges there, in terms of a large scale attraction (natural or otherwise). Will a city develop there? Or will it remain lots of unorganized lots. Will any areas remain forested? Will there be folks who decide to live in submersible environments. Hard to tell. It's only been a week. The thing is there are people there. And they will put their own spin on things. Check back in two years and see what has emerged.

What is the point in going to look at it?

Because it's there.

So if I understand correctly the entire new continent has terraforming diabled? If so, I wonder if that will be permanent? And if it is...

what exactly are the Lindens hiding beneath urtahra down there? (That mound in particular.)

We certainly did! There are quite a few large void water regions down there. It's a great chance to go tear through a whole bunch of undeveloped regions with a vehicle. You might have to fly as we've only found rezzable areas in Malra (in the interior). There is a space port there. I'll post the coordinates for it.

More info to come soon.

Well, I think they goofed. Today I found it was terraformable.

Ha! They know we're on to them, now!

This continent is for korean users isnt it? Has anyone spotted any yet -- ie: has LL started marketing SL Korean Language Edition yet? (Since 1.7 enabled UTF8 mostly globally I imagine it's now possible to do..?)

The names of the regions there would lead me to believe it, but the First Land was snapped up generally without any particular audience or exception. I haven't heard any new news on international versions of SL.

Check the old announcements about making content for the Korean, German & Japanese versions of SL.

Yes, it's been awhile tho and I haven't seen any updates?

I think a lot of it's happening in the background. Us english users are probably not going to be too privvy to any foreign language stuff; but there's a good number of foreign lindens now, and one of 1.7's big features was that it now supports internationalisation. (1.8 fixed this further; since scripts can now read/write UTF8 properly via Base64)

That's a good point... I still can't seem to type Unicode in notecards tho? I try to do long dashes, even, like "—", and it doesn't work.

I'd find it weird tho if more international things weren't brought into the open eventually, since we ARE all on the planet Earth, and Second Life is very diverse... I would believe we should still be under one community, and not segregated. I'm jumping to conclusions here, but I'm defnitely keen on seeing what else is out there.

I really appreciate cultural perspectives.

I went back to the southern continent this morning to have another look at that mysterious beach at Yongnam- I was curious to see whether the invisibility phenomenon was still present. I didn't notice any further problems in that sim, but I did see a curious thing in another part of the continent.

While scanning the large map, I noticed strange shapes in a few areas... shapes like large wings, seen from above. I remembered Salazar's photos of the dragon he'd seen, posted here on Snapzilla, and wondered if these might be evidence of more of the creatures. (Attached is a screen capture of the map, with the winglike shapes circled.)

I went to investigate the shapes, but found nothing at any of the locations the map indicated. So, if there are more dragons roaming this continent, they're very elusive- one wonders where they're hiding, since the only forest there is sparse pines. I'll be interested to see what other evidence might turn up.

I love it, it's like reading the hunt for the source of the Nile, SL style. Good thing there weren't pigmys!