Time for an update

The new year is 18 days old and still just one entry. Oh my! But there's not so much to tell...

In Gorean RP (or the lack of it) the one or other thing annoying me... so we don't RP much and most of the time stick to ourselves, trying to enhance the RP at the Trading Post where we live in Tabor Tropics. Slowly we are building up some marketstalls for the Nutri Life System (NLS). I still think it would be a good system (though with a lot of deficits).. if people would just be interested to really use it as a Roleplay-chance instead of camping their AVs all day long on spawners and filling up crates after crates with goods nobody wants, because everyone else is doing exactly the same.

We are at least trying to encourage RP by building our own little items... handmade-baskets with fruits, little bags with black wine (coffee) and cacao powder, or this little bag for candies and a candy cane attached to the leg, which I just created this week:

Also planning to sell a new brand of black wine which we call "Kopi Urta", similar to the "Kopi Luwak". - Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, because it first has to pass the digestive tract of a little rodent ("luwak") that looks like this:

We call it tree-urt in Gor (urt = rat) and Endy saved one a while ago from the cold winter in Tabor. He set it into our patch of black wine and cacao bushes and fed it with berries. But one day, when we came back from travels, we had to notice, that it called it's whole family of tree-urts and they ate all the bushes and beans and left us only a lot of heaps of urt-poo....

... but in the poo, River found the almost undigested beans. He washed them and placed them on roasts to dry. So we will see, what comes out of that...

Hmmmm... what else? Tried a rescue-mission this week, but didn't get any hints IC (in character)... so as we are strict in that and not accept OOC-info by IMs and group-chat, we couldn't do much.

Went to some SIMs, as we wanted to RP trade, but most people are sitting in their houses (if present at all) and don't bother to look for the visitors. Okay... I have to admit, that we also not jump everytime, when someone enters the SIM. Sometimes too busy to cuddle or OOC to talk. But people passing by, not even bothering to say "hi!", either IC or OOC... that makes me always wonder. Even if they are busy with something else or OOC, it is a question of manners to say at least a greeting. That's a question of manners... but Gor seems to lack a lot of these.

There were some visitors last week, which were quite fun. I wished they would have stayed longer. They RPed in Tabor East... also came over to us two times... took over the bakery as our baker in Tabor was missing (now back... or not? Nobody knows)... and promptly were first accused of being griefers, because they just BEEN THERE, and then someone else called out in group chat, to stay away from Tabor East, because "those outlaws" are there. Interestingly it was exactly those people, who sit in their houses all day long, don't RP with anybody and have nothing better to do than to cam all over the cluster and spy other people's bedrooms. "We have visitors! Stay away! Lock your doors!" - Why please are people with such a mentality on Gorean RP-SIMs at all? - However, I found those visitors' blog and they are really funny, I think. A big loss, that they were not welcomed...

Oh, and the Dark Lord seems to be back! Yay! Most of the times fun to RP... I think, he was sneaking around our house, but this time unfortunately it was us (mea culpa!) who were OOC at that moment, because of some incident right before that, which made me a bit... uhm... upset.

So far about Gor. Apart from that... hm... got some nice Freebies at the kobalt-store. I love the sexy underwear there. There are some polo-shirts and some speedos:

Not sure, if they are still there. Just search for "kobalt" and take a look yourself. Mmmmmm, those bulges... love them!

Missed the Tabor Sunday Dance this week... :-( ... Due to some RL-events... well, some changes in the RL-job are coming, so I won't be able to spend so much time in SL anymore anyways, but at least I prolly will now have the one or other weekend off (or at least a saturday).

And I miss building! I still have sooooo many projects to finish. Maybe I should try to get at least the smaller ones ready and offer them at Marketplace? - My boys started their own offers at Marketplace and they are doing well with their builds.

For instance this lovely bird-bath from River:

 


.. or the as well lovely lanterne from Endy.

Well, that's it for today. I still will try to write more often. Promise! (that I try, not that I really do)

My boys - the builders

My lil sunshine River has his first build on marketplace. It's a cute Flying House, the perfect skybox. (Of course it's not really drivable... that would be a mass.) It's so lovely and I'm so proud of my building boys!

My lil moonbeam Endy will soon get his first build on Marketplace too, I hope. He's a promising talent and soon will get ahead of his Master.

the hunts

We been on the builder's hunt last week, and I have to say... it was a bit disappointing. The worst organized hunt I've ever been to. Half of the shops on the list had no gift at all. And as they didn't have one, you didn't get the LM to the next one. etc. Bad organisation! And the gifts? I sorted them yesterday and half of it got directly into the trashcan. I don't know.... sometimes it seems to me, that shopowners put in those hunts their worst products with the motto "Doesn't hurt, when I give off THIS for free".. .which IMO is totally wrong. Who will ever return to your shop to BUY something, when he thinks you are building only crap?

The good thing at this hunt was: I always doubt my own building-skills and always try to get better... but I've seen a lot of shops and I've seen what people try to sell there and I realized: Most of that stuff I can do better.. and a lot of stuff others try to sell, I'm creating en passant, often giving it away for free or as bonus.

At the moment we are on the menstuff hunt. And that one is fun and the shops much better! Totally worth it.. I hope. I haven't unwrapped the gifts yet, as we are just at #25 of 150. As soon as we finished it, I'll report about it.

in Romanum

On Saturday I got a call from a customer, who had bought the hacienda from me. Well, it seemed to have been partly a misunderstanding. Though it is explained in the notecard, here again a note about rezzers (not only mine! This is a SL-glitch according to EVERY rezzer): When you lower a rezzer so much, that the building parts are underground, then they might stick in there! The easy solution for this is: After moving the rezzer to the right position, derez and then rezz the building again. Now it should be all in the right position.
Anyways.. after solving this he showed me where he put the Hacienda down. It's on one of the Romanum SIMs. He changed the textures on the outer columns and added lions and a gate from Grey Kurka.... and it looks really nice there and fits in the SIM very well, I think!

(For the pic: Couldn't show more of the hacienda on this pic, as we were standing on the roof on the other side *g*)

A home for Rammy

I wanted to wait with this until it is finished, but I'd like to show it now, as I'm talking about building-projects....

Two weeks ago I visited Rammy. He's the one on my friendslist who's there right from the beginning (I avoid to say "my oldest friend", cause he's complaining then "I'm not THAT old!!!") The first weeks/months of our SLife we were almost inseperapable. Now he isn't often online anymore and we only meet maybe once a month or less, but he's still a good friend.

Anywho... he showed me a pic of a house he would love to live in:

Which reminded me, that I always wanted to build a countryhouse. And as my lil moonbeam Endy gifted me a sculptmaking-tool which a friend recommended, I thought it is time! Sooooooo.... I started to make my own sculpts and use the countryhouse as training-object.

Here you see me working on it:

Still a lot of work to do, still a lot of sculpts to sculpt, but I think it's getting quite nice. For now it's only a raw draft (okay, I know so-called builders who would try to sell what I call 'raw draft' for about 2000 L$ on marketplace....), but I think Rammy will like it. (And hope the one or customer too, when I finished it)

Here's a close-up pic of me working on the roof:

A Short Dream

Well, it started last saturday right before RL-work, when I get an offer from someone I met the one or other time, but never had closer contact to.... It was really a surprise: The offer that he'd buy a (Gorean) SIM and I'd have free hand in building and managing and administrating it. Though it did sound too good to be true - I hestitated. Cause most people in Tabor welcomed us warmly and I didn't plan to leave so soon again. And... well... even if I'd had the chance to restore my work I had done in a certain city, altering it to someone even better and greater... it would have been a lot of work.

So I needed some time to think about it. There was harvest festival in Tabor too (oh, and sooooo proud of my lil sunshine, who made first place in the Gorean Trivia!!!) and RL-work..... and I couldn't think really straight. But finally, after talking to some people in Tabor and after the agreement to add this new SIM to the cluster, I finally agreed on monday!

My boys and me were so excited! Already went shopping, searching for new textures and inspiration and other stuff....

One of the most impressive shops is Grey Kurka's! I mentioned it some posts before.

His texturing is awesome, and how he plays with prims... altering.. changing... cutting them.... it's truly inspired! At the same time I'd see his work as challenge to me, and I would have been happy for the chance to build something at least half as spectacular as his builds.

However, on tuesday, we got the notice, that due to some RL-issues our "sponsor" had to step back. :-(

Well, it shouldn't have been. It was a nice fantasy... cut as surprising as it was offered. But always looking at the bright side: Gives me more time to spend with my boys, for RP and for building stuff for my shop.

Busy building

Didn't mention for a while my new updates on the store. I got some packs with paintings, also available as single paintings. As I sell them for 10 L$ each, with is the price for uploading them, it's not really a profitable business thingens; it just made me angry, that some people try to sell uploaded pictures, often not even adjusted to the original or in low resolution or with ugly frames (most of the times all this together) for 100 L$ or what....

  (c) Finn Millar for Vice Poses

Finn Millar made a great picture for the promotion of a poseball-shop ("Vice Poses"). Showing my basement. I have to say: It really looks very atmospheric! Of Course Finn and Spencer are great artists.

Okay... now, let me see... what did I put up to MP in the last weeks? 

There was the blacksmith house I'd built for Corcyrus:

.....Another palm in a pot....

... my old store ....

... and a new version of the torvie house! Smaller than "The Merchant's House" and "The Poor Merchant's House", that's why I called it "The Merchant's Little Brother" :-) However, I abandoned alpha-windows and used sculpted windows this time, cause I'm annoyed by that alpha layer bug; so even as it is smaller, it uses some more prims.

And still lots of projects upcoming!

Impressive

Been dancing at Romanum this night and then looked around the SIM a bit. I found this roman villa and... wow! I'm not easy to impress, but this is a stunning built!

The Creator is Grey Kurka.

Very well done! Kowtow!

new house

Finally got the new house on marketplace which I had build for the tropics. Still about +/-153 projects to go...

Our House

So, it's time to show some pictures of our house. The last weeks been so busy again. I don't have the time to continue with all my planned projects for my store. And that although the new possibility of making megaprims makes my heart bounce!

Well, the building of the house and furnishing it (not ready yet) kept me busy. And after that was done, I got busy with the "suggestions for the NLS pricing." And the growing amount of Meeroos (I think it's about 40 now or more...) keeps us busy too. But things are calming down now and we're looking forward to RP again.

So, here's our house - a mix of roman "Villa Rustica" and mexican hacienda with a touch of Gor:

My Office

View to the atrium

View from the ocean

View from the docks

Steps to my office

the court yard

the cattle

view into the court yard

the kitchen

court yard

dining area

atrium

bedroom with bath

terrace

Copycats

So, when someone asks you "Where did you get this and that texture?" and you tell him.... When he asks you "How did you do this and how did you make that? I tried and failed. What am I doing wrong???" And you tell him.... Then you should get suspicious and don't wonder, if one day you will find this:

Forgery

Original

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"

update update update

Not posted for another week, so it's time for some updates....

* From here to eternity *

I almost finished sorting my inventory. Except... textures... which will be another 20.000 to sort.

Sorting out my poseballs I found this one...

 

.... and set it out on our beach. Love it! Reminds me of the movie "From here to eternity".

Would have liked to work on this pic a bit, but don't have the time for it.

* Firestorm *

Struggling with the next generation of Phoenix-viewer which is called Firestorm. I don't like it much. Though it seems to be more stable, it also seems much slower in rezzing textures and I DO NOT FIND ANYTHING! *growls*

* Savage Tales *

Snake spent some time with his tribe-brothers Giani and Gim. After they had to leave Tidra and followed the "guardians" (Franzi & co...) to the cold north, they first tried to settle down in a cave in Kalana Fjord. But they were not welcome there, so they moved on. Now they are in the neighbor-SIM where - after some confusing and misunderstandings in the beginning - they were welcomed warmly. They found a nice little cave, neighboring a kur ("talking beast" as they call it), busy with hunting, eating and trading a lot.

* Nutri Life System *

We're giving up on the NLS! Just today another market opened. Offering things they "harvest". Black wine beans, bazi tea, salt... Yes, according to the books they grow so much in the cold north... Not!

It just doesn't make sense to RP a trader, travelling all over Gor to buy cheap here, sell expensive there, when people can just collect the stuff along the boardwalks wherever they are and then offer it all for free.

So I will pull down our marketstalls and use it from now on only for our private needs like cooking, eating and drinking. No trading anymore.

The thought of the system isn't bad. But people are people. They all want to be independent and nobody really WANTS to RP with the goods in a REASONABLE way. It would need better control. But the creator it seems is only interested in making money and doesn't care any further about it.

We created a group to support a more reasonable use of the system, but I don't think it's worth to waste time, energy and nerves.

* The Shop *

I changed the design of my shop. I liked it very much before, but as I mostly sell Gorean houses and stuff, I made it more appropriate now. I wished I could drag more customers in... What's the nicest built worth, if people don't see it?

* The Meeroo-invasion *

It all started with Mr. Roo.... And now we got.. I think 12 13 1415161718 meeroos running around!

Yeah, they are cute, but somehow they remind me of the "tribbles" in Star Trek. I think they make even the same chirping sounds. :-)

Well, I got two for myself. Babies from my boys' tribbles meeroos. But really.. enough is enough! All following offspring is going to be sold. Period.

But hell, they are really cute, aren't they?

***

Hm, I think that's it for today. Hope I didn't forget any news. I really should get used to write the news every day...

Bitchy me

And another time got a bit upset yesterday. - I don't like to be so bitchy, but sometimes enuff is enuff. I worked hard on the City of Corcyrus. More then two months day and night... no time for RP, no time for relaxation, no time for my slaves, no time for RL... even jeopardizing my health (and still suffering from it)... But I've done it with love. Love for building and love for creating beauty and love for (most) of the residents of Corcyrus, which (almost) all were very nice and friendly to me and my boys.

A creation like this would at least cost 2000 U$ upwards (I even heard of prices up to 15.000 U$). But I've done it for free. Is that stupid? Maybe. But I've done it for the mentioned love. And I've done it for my reputation as builder. The conditions for that were, that 1. the buildings remain my property and 2. they keep untouched. Whatever they FURNISH inside... I don't care.

But now some individuals think they have to "improve" the building to their own (tasteless) taste. So who the hell do they think they are that THEY have to "improve" something when 1000s of others say it's perfect in it's beauty already? So I get building-parts sent back, doors, walls and building-components arriving in my lost-and-found folder, they exchange it with their own stuff and when they can't, they put walls and floors OVER mine. Like a rustic wooden floor (!) to the marble-walls. *shudders*

If someone wants changes in his private rooms, I'm the first one to come and help. That's not a problem. But all within limits! A healer who doesn't like the green tapestry in the infirmary because she doesn't like the color green? Gosh! Go and join another caste!!! (for those who are not familiar with Gor: Gor has castes and each caste has it's own color. The color of physicians is... guess what!... green! duh!)

And apart from that - you can't be everybody's darling. They want big changes today, and the next day they will leave anyways. They know, but they will try anyways to see how far they can go and get their own will. If you allow it, there would be changes bit by bit, step by step... and soon it would be a cacophony of individual prims and not a matching unity.

So, yes! I'm bitchy about that and scare some people with temper tatrums. But I'd rather delete it all then watch the Jewel of the Vosk becoming uglier day by day...

Just a little pride...

Some years ago someone said about my building-skills, I'd be just dropping prefabbed prims and every idiot can do that... Well, I am now almost finished with the City of Corcyrus and although it isn't even officially opened yet, it is in traffic already among the first 5 Gorean SIMs (and there are several 100). And a part of it I think is because people want to see the city, many want to stay and live there and they bring their friends in too. My boys call me a "Master Builder" and the visitors and citizens of Corcyrus are full of praise, some calling it even "A piece of art". I for myself don't see me as Master-Builder. I am still struggling with scripts and sculpts - two skills a Master-Builder in my opinion would have to posess. But I think I have decent skills and I love to create and I have taste combined with being good in mathematics and an eye for details plus - thanks to OCD - a certain.. obsession.
However, I'm a little bit proud of what I created there, although I know.. thinking about it... having more time... and more prims... I know, I could do better. :-)

Anywho... I'm getting a bit tired of not having time for other things, so I hope this week the work will be done. Then we can move back to our Gorean home in Kalana Fjord, which is moving to another cluster. I'm looking forward to a certain RP-system they are using there. And I guess as it has German basics, I have a bit of advantage.

still busy building

Just a short comment to leave, that I'm still busy building that city. Getting a bit tired of it as I got no time to do anything else. Hopefully it will be ready somewhat next week.

And these days often an old song goes through my mind. Those people around me know why!

Too busy to breath

Okay, it's been a while since I wrote here and it will take another while until I got time again. It all started with selling a house... and then offering help adjusting it... and then making suggestions about the SIM-design... and one thing let to another.. soooooo.... I'm building a Gorean SIM. And building lots, lots, lots of new houses for it. *ooomph* This up there was the last one I'm working on. Will sell them laters, single and as set. But that will be more work then.. *sighs*

Sooooo, I'm neglecting everything at the moment - my boys, friends, fun, RL.... On the one side I love building and at least a part of Tidra (the temple-ruins) are coming back to life, on the other side I wished the progress would be faster.

Well, at least I found out this (new?) function in the phoenix viewer. Never recognized it before (not sure if it was there before!?). It's so cool and saves me hours and hours of work. But I will talk about this later (so... in about 3-4 months *meh*).

And I found that new texture-organizer which is just awesome!!! Everything I missed in the freebie-organizers. Sondra, the SIM-owner, gifted it to me and I bounced happily for about an hour as I figured out all it's functions. Not alone that it is loading textures into the content much easier and faster then the freebies, it can also show sculpties (and give you the prim) out of sculpt-maps, you can search by name (another thing I miss in the freebies, as I have for instance "doors" some under "metal", others under "wood" etc), it finds and deletes duplicates, you can move textures within the organizer from one category to another, you can set permissions who can use it, you can pack textures from a category and copy it as folder into your inventory, and... and... and... When I (ever) am done with the SIM, this will help me a lots to organize (and reduce) my inventory. *Yay!*

Okies! Back to work! Just wanted to say hi!

Mehz likez....

... my new logo
(mainly made by my boy River and of course - for the picture of the original seal - by my boy Mick):

... and my new (first) shop (totally made by mehz):

House Spencer

Okay, "House Spencer" is finished also. I'm not sure, if many people would buy a house with basement, but as it is ready anyways... So, here it is:

House Finn

And another house is ready! - Now this was kinda funny. I mentioned our friends Finn & Spencer before (check them out if you need customized poses or portraits... or both). Now they moved to Gor (Tabor Fields) and bought the merchant house from me. But Tabor Fields is southern style whereas the merchant house is northern/viking style. Sooooo they asked me for a retexturing to match the other buildings (*clears his throat at this point and bites his tongue*) on that SIM. And out came "House Spencer" (will follow later).

Chance - one of the owners of Tabor - liked it so much, that he bought it (the prototype of "House Spencer") and a no-basement version too. So here is: HOUSE FINN.

The more I worked on it, the more I liked it. Furnished and with some paintings on the wall it looks lovely inside too. I'm going to build some other variations of it (as well as of the Northern type), including a stable. So lots to do!

Oh, and it's really time for an inworld shop soon! Working on that also....

Busy business

We hadn't used our earth-parcel much in the last months except for the building-plattform. Somehow the house felt too big and I couldn't get into the mood to furnish and decorate it. Now things changed! We got a smaller main house, Juz & Joshie got a tiki over the waves, and Endy finally moved in with us with his own house, all matching together (same creator: Bee Caudron, who really does a good work in tiki-/beach-houses).

So now the main house is furnished and decorated, and I also changed the garden behind the house.... And now we all like it so much that we don't want to leave (for our Gorean house) at all!

Here are just some quick snapshots:

Talking of Gorean houses: The Merchant house without basement is ready and on marketplace! Though marketplace sucks a bit... only because of the word "Gorean" in the description, it automatically sets it to "mature" content. Strange, strange, strange!

Well, planning on my own lil shop anyways, so that potential customers can rezz the builds on a platform to take a look at it. Not that I would have to sell yet soooo much (silly me is always giving his stuff away for FREE! dang!)