Learning From Other Builds

The past few days I've been researching themed sims, and finding out what makes them so special, and how it can help with the development of Neualtenburg.

So Here's What I Learned:

Name: Atlantis
Sim Name: Atlantis (128,12
Theme: Underwater Sim, Atlantis.
Activities: Scuba Diving, Tringo, Ballroom (weddings), Submarine rides, Sightseeing
Unique: Underwater sim, beautiful coral reefs, excellent design.
Neualtenburg Improvements: To explore Atlantis one can rez a provided submarine, I was thinking Neualtenburg could have something similar to that, just more bavarian. Also a ballroom, will be a nice addition to Nburg.


Name: Rue D'Alliez
Sim Name: Rue D'Alliez
Theme: French
Activities: Shopping, Apartment Rentals, Ballroom.
Unique: Detailed buildings (not one is alike!), french theme, decorations by the roads, etc.
Neualtenburg Improvements: Market stalls, variety of buildings, more decorations.
Architecht: Versu Richelieu

- More decorations and scenery attract more resedential and commercial customers to Nburg.

(I'll find out more informations about other theme builds/sims later)

Nice job, Eugene! I haven't seen Atlantis, but I've certainly be around Rue D'Alliez. This was before 1.6 and I had incredible lag and just 0.6 fps on that sim, so I never went back there again It's a pity, because what I saw, certainly looked amazing.

There is always a trade-off between "beautification" and "using too many textures and prims which create tremendous hell" (as soon as we have many different customized houses, this will get worse). In Anzere, people I met there on the events I hosted always complained about the incredible lag we had there - and it was only caused from textures, since we didn't have many scripts, and the number of prims was below our allowance. The new sim is far, far faster! Still, as the city grows, the number of textures increase, and people start to bring their own laggy scripted objects, things are going to be much worse, I expect. The trick will be to "control" buildings so that the lag never gets so bad as at Rue D'Alliez.

I expect that a counter-argument is that lag only affects people with slow computers and low-end graphic cards. That is certainly true. As a user of a below-average computer in terms of speed, I'm very sensitive to these arguments. I tend to attend events at sims with 15+ avatars, only 40-50 Sim FPS (that's what you get on very, very old sims in SL...), and I still get some decent frame rates on my PowerBook - around 5-7 on a good day. Neualtenburg has right now 3 or 4 times that frame rate for me, which is amazing. Of course, I've also tested SL on a high-end computer - the kind of computer that always has 30-50 frames per second, independently on how laggy the sim is

As always, the trick is to make things look amazingly cool, and still keep the sim statistics "under control". That's a challenge, and a pretty difficult one to meet.

BTW, instead of the Ballroom - we have the Oktoberfest (although we could do a Maifest as well!) which serves about the same purpose: get people together, listen to music, dance on the tables while driniking beer from steins

Sim Name: Various (Ansheland)
Theme: Various
Special Feauture: Multiple sims, various terrain, themed builds, shops.
Architecht: Various (Residents of Ansheland)

Sim Name: Ginko
Theme: Futuristic
Special Feature: Planned level of housing/shops, zoning, community oriented, casino.
Architecht: Various (GinkoTec Group, Other Individuals)

Sim Name: Verlorendam (Under Construction)
Theme: Dutch (Amsterdam)
Special Feature: Canals, boats, amazing details/architechture, club, shops.
Architecht: Versu Richelieu

Sim Name: Burj
Theme: Hotel
Special Feature: Entire sim is hotel, water sports, casino, luxury living.
Architecht: Various

Build Name: Silk Water's Mountain
Theme: Oriental (Japanese, Chinese, Korean)
Special Feature: Asian styled sim, beautiful landscaping, waterfalls, shops, rentals, homes, themed build.
Architecht: Versu Richelieu.

Build Name: Wixom Wild West
Theme: Wild West
Special Feature: Wild West styled sim, shops, saloon, themed build.
Architecht: Versu Richelieu.

Note: Just thought it would be helpful
- We can learn from our competetors

(Wow Versu has been doing a lot of themed sims )