Other worlds

Of course you'd have to blind not to know about the Linden's contest, but that sounds more like they are looking for more in world games to keep us coming back.

That's nice, but what I'm thinking of is more along the line of a true "alternate world", one where the physical parameters are different, perhaps smaller.

So when they have a bank of 9 servers ready to go on line, instead of plunking them in SL proper, they go into their own little ASL.

3 across, and 3 down, like this:

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

If you walk north off of 3, you appear at the bottom of 9. Neat huh?

Comments?

Kedamono

You mean the one where only users of the soon to be announced (any day now I'm sure) Linux client are allowed to go?

Oooh, I like this idea. From normal SL you could look up at the moon and see a few pixels of green growing in the center of it, and from the moon sims, you could see a similar set of pixels added to the standard Earth map in, uh, I guess the Pacific.

Hey, just where *IS* SL located on Earth anyway?. This might be like trying to figure out where "The Prisoner" was filmed in the 60's.

I think SL is located just east of Springfield and Shelbyville.

No, it's definitely -not- located in Indiana.

I'd say it's on the Equator, due to the lack of snow or rainy weather...

Stars dont really look like SL stars in real life anyway...

They aren't just semi-uniformly distributed same sized points of light in real life... and in real life, theres nebulae, gas clouds, visible to the naked eye... the milky way... etc...

Of course, if you've lived in a city most your life, there is just these semi-uniform points of light, just like in SL.

But if you've been out int he middle of nowhere, you'd know that theres a heck of a lot more to it...

Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore.

I think it is smack dab in California, where else?

San Francisco, CA, USA.

Linden Lab is on 2nd street, and it is possible to drive to the location of the servers in a short amount of time, so I am assuming they (and thus SL) are also in San Francisco.

If you are talking about something more abstract - like if SL was in the real world where would it be.... I don't know. Not san fran though - not nearly enough fog.

Obviously it's a large desert island in the South Pacific, just south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Fits the coastline, low but steep coastal mountains, existence of palms and pines together, lack of rain, and quality & hue of sunlight.

How about this idea -- group-designed "off-world" sims, linked by hubs, with SL as the "central Dore-Ahern type" world. So the wood-elves, for example, could have their own forest planet. And the entrepreneurs and urban dwellers could build Trantor-Coruscant-type worlds. Etc.

A compromise, then -- enough segmentation for diverse groups to follow their own muses, but cohesion and community preserved for the general society.

I would love to see alternate worlds represented in sl, also subterranean would be nice too )


Neil

"For the world is hollow, and I... and I have touched the sky!"

Ooh, subterranean! Lit with blues and oranges, stalagmites and stalactites! The battle of Mordor! And Balrogs... err, Big Fiery Demons with whips!

I like...

No no, keeping Windoze users out would be totally impolite.

In fact, in the interest of community and fair play, their rendering should be speeded up using one of their native, built-in graphic facilities, the BSOD.

These are all great ideas that I would love to see implemented eventually. I think non-euclidean worlds would be super-awesome, personally: spherical planets, Dyson shells with an inhabitable inner surface, ringworlds, toroid space stations... imagine the possibilities!

Of course, they could be a nightmare to map...

Resurrecting another old thread....

We got the snow sims, and tropics, but I haven't heard of desert ones. And the moon looking back at the earth, or other planets/moons altogether would be even cooler, though that really would take multiple grids or something. No reason you couldn't teleport between planets, though.

Meanwhile, we could be building underwater more, I guess....

I also really like the idea of seasons. It would take the ability to change ground textures as well as adjusting vegetation textures, perhaps on a one-week cycle or something. How horrible would this be from a server performance point of view? As with the snow sims, it would need to be sim-wide and probably should not be retrofitted onto existing sims....

Neko

don't we have these? i'm pretty sure. i've seen sandy beaches and volcanic cliffs in the (i think) central northeastish sims? plenty of icey stuff in the south. some areas are all bare and grey and deserty looking too and i know some of the private sims have desert textures because someone posted a while back.

if anyone wants to change gravity i can show you a way. IM if you're interested.

I think these are all excellent ideas and, furthermore, could see them implemented fairly well for those of you wishing to devote the time, land, prims, and effort to doing so.

While ideas such as modifiable skyboxes and modifiable world clouds by plot would require a Linden "feature" (and, since they would be client-based, let me add a hint hint) - creating one's own "world" with select orbitting behaviours, or ringworlds, or toral worlds, or whatever, can all be done with a bit of LSL and formal knowledge of the physics involved.

In fact, it's already something I've given serious thought to, and done with several shades of success before.

So, for the megalomaniacs out there that would like to set up their own solar system or "world" - please feel free to IM me. I would be glad to help you, so long as I'm logged in, have time, and wouldn't get stiffed at the end.

On a related note, isn't modifiable ground texturing already a feature? I could swear I saw something of that sort go in at some point.

If not, I have a solution for you.

I saw that, and it does help, but uses up a bunch o' prims. Not everyone can afford that.

Neko

A taste might be to download Celestia from www.shatters.net and tour the "real" universe. Actually, having something with Celestia's look and feel would be a great beginning. I would love to build a place on Phobos and watch ruddy Mars pass below. <Sigh>

sl stars are pretty realistically distributed when you remember there's bazillions of stars in the irl sky. if you get away from the city they can get packed. anyways sl stars look pretty random to me. plus they're different sizes and they twinkle if you look close.

the reason you can't see the galaxies and nebulae in sl is all the damn light prims.