Idea: Hidden Lakes National Park!

I've just been visiting the new sims in the northeast, where the new Hidden Lakes telehub and welcome area is.... it's a beautiful area, with thick pine forest, lakes everywhere, and lots of open roads perfect for a long ride. The new welcome area looks like it was modeled on a national park entrance.... which gave me an idea.

This new area is too pretty to let it all end up being bought, subdivided into hundreds of overpriced 512's, sold at exorbitant prices, and overdeveloped... how about if Linden Labs were to leave a good chunk of it surrounding the new telehub alone, as protected land, not to be sold, as a SL national park? With this new funding they've been talking about, they could certainly afford to do so.... It'd be a fabulous place to go for an afternoon, to escape the clubs and malls, just to get away from civilization and relax.

There could be hiking trails, and some areas could be used as rentable campsites using the 'buy pass' land access feature. It's really a beautiful place... I rezzed a helicopter there and had an amazing time flying high and fast over the new roads and pine forests.

Attached are some photos of a couple of the sims I visited. (I'll put more on Flickr; see the link on my blog, bloganexsi.blogspot.com.) I'd like to propose that the sims surrounding the telehub be kept permanently protected, as the Hidden Lakes National Park. Any thoughts? All in favor say Aye...?

Aye.

Good God yes. I was just thinking the same thing. If they're going to have a program like that in the snow sims, I say let them do the same or better in the new sims.

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said the land baron

Fo sho... and next, desert and Martian simscapes.

I think a National Park is an excellent idea. I'd love to be able to wander around in the woods, away from civilization.

Aye!

Perfect for wildlife like myself.

So -- I don't get it. How do we develop a national park?



On edit: It's a joke. If you want to see some of the most developed areas of the United States and Canada, go to a national park.

I think that's the point. We DON'T develop it.

It is set aside as a protected area, left natural. Perhaps the Lindens could put down cabins as was mentioned just for people to use on a "daily" basis.

It would be a place to retreat to if you want to get away from civilization.

Excellent idea ^_^

I loved that area while it was just wide open space with forests, hills and luvverly wilderness.

It would be nice to see an area set aside before it's too late - even a couple of sims-worth would be fantastic and lets face it - there's not exactly a shortage of land right now !

Maybe just a minimum of careful 'forestry management'; only where it enhances the 'theme', and you have a beautiful resource that would be a credit to SL.

Personaly, I have my eyes on an area in Seascale (coincedentaly visable from the teleport *and* waterfront, so might be stiff competition for it) that would be ideal for developing a marina, my "dream project" for SL. However, I love the idea of a national park theme for the area...preserve or enhance a lot of the natural views, have some select development like cabins, boating venues, hiking trails and other recreational "get away from it all" stuff.

What you would have to do, I think, is get a group togeather to raise the funds for the land and set the rules you want people to follow for building in the area (or for that mater, being allowed to build there). You would also need a way for the area to be finalcialy sustainable, probably a combination of donations, dwell money, events and generous people who can afford to chip in for the land tier fees. If you (we?) could get a cohesive plan togeather, the project might even qualify for Linden support as NeverNeverLand is (can't find the relivant forum thread, someone post it?)

Having Linden-protected land helps too, but it's just not quite as fun, IMO

Edit: found the thread about Linden support for big group projects: /120/54/26430/1.html

I kind of don't like this idea. People begged for some of the snow sims to be left blank, and now they're rarely used. Use up all the land, so that the land is useful, because a national park will not be utilized.

It would definetely be nice to have something like a national park.. but it would need fun stuff for people to do there so that people actually use it.

This is a great idea. We can build a huge welcome club, a forest themed casino, and a wildlife preservation mall. Dont forget the parking lot for everyone's vehicles and throw in a money ball for good measure, it may just work.

This is an awesome idea, and if it is near enough to a telehub, people will definitely use it.

Why not just make all of Watersim (can't recall the name exactly -- Watergate? Watershed?) parkland? It already looks like one.

To those who say it won't be used, I say: people are using it right now! They are driving and flying around on it. They are enjoying the scenic beauty. They are enjoying a sim relatively free of lag. These are rare pleasures in SL that stem directly from the fact that the land is little-used. I crave and seek out such places in RL as well as SL - why not set aside a little? Would you really rather have some Anshe Chung or other person come along and flatten the land, put in palm trees and flowering shrubs and sell it off to a bunch of people who will build more tasteless malls or casinos or clubs or overpriced apartments or clones of Sulumor's beach house?

You may respond that the sandbox sims near Ahern (Brilliant, etc) exist for this purpose, but let's be honest. Few people go there except to shake down people who are shopping at Busy Ben's. I think we are all a bit bored with featureless dirt tracks. There is nothing there to catch the eye. I don't even know where the recreational snow sims are. The snow sims are a huge, frozen wasteland anyway. It's cold there! I live in snow more than half of the year already - when I play SL I want to go somewhere warm. And these new Pacific sims are gorgeous! So blue and green. Please, let's try to preserve just a little of that. If I were the Linden making these new sims I think my heart would break every time the land in one of them sold at auction.

Anyway, my heartfelt AYE! for Hidden Lakes National Park!

TIMBER!

This isn't something that could be done easily, so it's probably irrelevant in regards to these sims... But what about lower density sims to protect the natural atmosphere of some regions? I mean that the number of builds in a particular sim would be lower and there would be more space between builds. Maybe there could be a no-build border extending inward from the edge of each parcel, with the thickness of the border proportional to the size of the parcel. The land in the no-build area would still count towards your prim allottment, so you'd have the same amount of prims to build with. But parcels would tend to be larger and there would be buffers of undeveloped land between them.

Just thinking out loud about the issue here.

All I have to say is, wait till the AVs move in... Muuhahaha. Its too bad that when sims become available to us, that they usually become a haven for over textured light material prims. I have loved visiting the new sims whenever they're released but try and stay away from them as people start moving is as I like to try and remember the way they were in their pristine condition. Hehe, look what happened to Spittoonie It was such a nice island before

I'm against the idea. Why? Because I think a park in SL ought to be created to be a park -- something that cannot be done in RL. I can think of plenty of ways -- both dramatic and restful -- to terraform sims to create a specifically-parklike environments. The new sims were terraformed to build in. Why not reach an agreement with the Lindens to create open park sims, and then design them specifically with artistry and purpose in mind?

Since SL is no accident of geology, why not rely on our own creative genius to realize the vision?

I would love to hear more about your ideas. Specifically, how does rejecting the idea of Hidden Lakes National Park advance your other ideas? This could be a nice thing in the interim. I would welcome and support creative people coordinating with the Lindens on public works projects that hold "artistry and purpose in mind," but why not do this now? It would be easy, cheap, and a blessed relief from telehubs surrounded by Plush, etc.

Meanwhile, the brand-newly-opened sims look pretty park-like to me, not all that suitable for building. Rough terrain, all those pesky trees, etc. You know that if they're sold through, someone will come along, delete the trees, and with that land-flattening script turn it all into rectangular shelves. Then, it will be suitable for building - clubs, casinos, strip joints, malls, gratuitous cookie-cutter homes, etc. In a few months, people will look at it and say to themselves, "Look! New sims have opened! Wow, guess we really mucked up the ones that were new a few months ago! Let's dump what we've got, move and do the same thing all over!" Lather, rinse, and repeat.

SL is no accident, perhaps, but after a time a lot of it begins to look like one. Until we can coordinate our creative genii, let's let the Lindens cordon off a spot that could serve as an example.

Support Hidden Lakes National Park!

I want some land that people can hub too near in the forest. I will erect a tall ranger's tower and play Ranger Gord!!!

And what about some hunting?

I'm all for a protected natural area! Now to make some camping gear...

Tricky to do, but possible. I'm more for fishing myself, as it's quieter and probably easier to script.

Hunting, fishing, tree hugging, faerie parties, park rangering, hiking, rock climbing(?), paint-ball wargames, off-roading, etc, etc. All on a land that can't be f'ed up!

Strip-mining games, anyone? Kidding.

First off, I love this idea. That said, there is a difference between parkland and virgin wilderness. That's true in RL, and I think it would be in SL too. While I love the uncluttered look of the new sims and the gorgeous job the Lindens did terraforming, I don't think it can be left that way forever and be successful. Also, I think there needs to be someone taking stewardship of the sims, because land left to itself will be either unusable or abused.

What I'm thinking is that, for example, a group of Hidden Lakes Park Rangers could be formed to steward the land. Let the land remain under Linden ownership, but the group would be able to manage the land as if they were the technical owners. They just wouldn't be able to sell any of it. Being in the group would either be volunteer - Lindens wouldn't pay dwell to balance the loss of land sales and tier fees. Alternately, the Rangers group could have to come up with enough land use allocation to support the parkland, and would get its dwell (but not a dwelloper award). I'm sure there are other arrangements that make at least as much sense too, and at least one that works for the Linden's business model.

Rangers woudn't be able to sell, clearcut or level the land, but they would be able to "develop" it in ways that made it useful for all residents to enjoy. Perhaps a campfire circle for telling ghost stories, or a fishing pond, campgrounds, or a Native SecondLifers villiage (j/k on that one). Too bad there are no big cliffs for a scripted rock climbing area.