See SL9B's Destination Guide for this Weekend's Celebration

Here's the Second Life destination guide page to SL9B, the user-run celebration of Second Life's 9th anniversary this weekend. (Which technically is actually its 9th year as a commercial operation, because its first user joined in March 2002, which I'd say is a way better month to mark SL's birthday, but anyway.) I'm already hoping to visit the SL9B tribute to Tim Burton, but only after I see Tim Burton's Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. If you have SL9B sites and events to recommend, please post in Comments!

And if you have trouble visiting due to lag and crashes, which is often the case, you can always celebrate SL9B in Cloud Party.

Tweet

Comments

[Laetizia Coronet]

I work on SL9B. I am on a reasonably cheap laptop. I have experienced a bit of lag, which is normal, and no crashes other than one due to a heatwave here in Italy.
Instead of scaring people away you could direct them to our blog which explains clearly how to combat lag. http://sl9b.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/lag-at-sl9b-how-to-deal-with-it/

SL9B opened a week ago. You point your readers to info about it a week late, and after we've had numerous live acts which might have interested someone. Well done Hamlet.

[Saffia Widdershins]

Hamlet, I posted a response to this yesterday with a great many details of SL9B events and numerous links , which didn't appear here. I'm presuming that you wouldn't have edited it out so I suspect it must have been too long ... I turned it into a post on my own blog but, as you have invited links, I'll try again, posting in tranches, and hope it works!

[Saffia Widdershins]

I'd suggest starting with some of the blogs that are giving excellent coverage of SL9B events such as:
Inara Pey's Living in the Modem World (she's going through the twenty sim Comunity Celebration sim by sim)
Caitlin Tobias is doing something similar on Cait's World
Daniel Voyager's blog
Honour Macmillan's blog - Honour's Post-Menopausal View of Second Life
Chestnat Rau's Second Life of My Dreams
Yordie Sands' Being Yordie Sands ... to name but a few.

Or, of course, there's the main blog for the SL9B Community Event.

[Saffia Widdershins]

That has links to the main stages (where there are events pretty much 24/7) and the Welcome Area where you can pick up swag, chat with greeters who will help you out, collect the excellent HUD designed by Bo Tiger (which will zip you around the sims or to the stage of your desire) or catch a podcar (running very smoothly this year - thanks to Yvanna Llanfair!) which will give you a guided tour with helpful information about many of the builds you pass.

Crap Mariner has created an awesome schedule of events at the SL9B twenty sim Community event, complete with live links to any events that take your fancy.

There's even a few hunts at the event - The amazing Egyptian Hunt (which is an interactive story on the blog - with a fresh clue being uncovered daily by an intrepid explorer). There's also a Cake Hat Hunt.

If you want to find information about other events going on for the birthday (and NOT at the twenty sim celebration event), there's a Hub right by the Welcome Area that offers you information on other events that you can go to - and landmarks.

[Saffia Widdershins]

But we hope you'll stop off to take a look at some of the 330+ separate resident builds you can find at the community event, such as the one mentioned by Hamlet.

My Prim Perfect tearoom is just opposite, by the way, and as well as relaxing there with a cup of tea, you can pick up Sway Dench's adorable SL9B Bear - there are, of course, no Linden Birthday bears, but Sway has created a beautfful one, and you can get the means to make your own Birthday Bear at Loki Eliot's special school project on Linden Lab.

And while you're at the sims, do look out for the gorgeous KittyCatS Birthday cat and RacerC Gullwing's free rainbow snails - I saw two of them riding in a pod car and turning excited somersaults as they passed the builds!

All of this has been made possible by the fantastic sponsors: DreamSeeker Estates, Fruit Islands and KittYCatS - and the anonymous donor.

I could run to several pages of comments all by myself picking out awesome builds at SL9B - but I'll let other people do that - I hope I've supplied enough information to give everyone a start!

[Saffia Widdershins]

There you go! It needed bite-sized chunks to go through the filters - so my apologies for hogging the comments!

But I'm afraid that I do have to echo Laetizia's comment, that I find it very disappointing that your coverage of this event has been limited to one short post at the very end of the glorious week long celebration.

[Hamlet Au]

Thanks for the links, Saffia, they're really valuable. Linden Lab is already promoting SL9B from within the viewer and their website, which is going to bring much more attention to it than this blog ever could. The trouble with covering events like SL9B on this blog (and this is based on maintaining an SL event calendar on NWN for 3-4 years), is that very few readers can be available to log in on the day/time of a scheduled event, and because of SL's architecture, still fewer can attend even if they want to. Beyond that, judging by clickthrough rates, very few NWN readers have shown much interest in SL9B -- or alternately, they've already made their plans for it and aren't looking to this site as a resource for it. Anyway, I'm dropping by when I have time, hope to see you there!

[Mistletoe]

Excellent links, Saffia; thank you for them.

I share my disappointment with both Laetizia and Saffia, about the very limited coverage this blog has given of SL9B; what coverage has been given has mostly been invented controversy about one exhibit. There was no word on volunteering, on preparations, on resources of where to find exhibits until now.

And when you finally do mention it, you decide to get a dig in by saying, "And if you have trouble visiting due to lag and crashes, which is often the case, you can always celebrate SL9B in Cloud Party." As someone who volunteered time and energy as a greeter, as someone who put days of work into an exhibit, and as someone who's both blogged and Tweeted about SL9B, I find that final sentence insulting. It's one thing to air legitimate complaints about functionality; it's quite another to make such dismissive statements about a project put together in five weeks as a labor of love.

It's not perfect, it's not without functionality problems common throughout SL, but damn it, it's OURS.

Saffia, I admire the hell out of you. While people like Hamlet sit back and gripe, you ACT. Thank you.

Now then, I think I shall set down this cocktail and be on my way.

[Jamezy]

Why is everyone beating up James for not posting more about SL9Bday?? This is his blog and he is entitled to post whatever he wants to cover. In all fairness there were other SL9Bday events and why should a blog or anyone devote all their time and effort and covering just one?

I have to agree with James here, not everyone was interested nor did they seem to care about the fact that SL celebrated 9 years this past week. Many residents that I spoke to had no idea and nor did they even want to go to any of those events.

I am not taking sides, but James pays for his blog's hosting, so he is allowed to cover what he wants to. If people want their events covered then they should find other outlets to promote them.

[Dave Bell]

I have to say that my initial experience of SL9B was not good. I think the organisers were initially optimistic about the number of Avatars a region can cope with. An AV limit of 40 seems, from my experience across the Grid, seems a practical limit. SL9B was running with an apparent limit of 60.

Burn2 was running a little higher, maybe 45, when Phillip Linden visited, but it was a comparatively sparse environment, and most AVs sat down, which helps.

I also saw reports of TP problems during that first day, but I don't think they were SL9B-specific.

I think a chance was missed. There could have been a different style of event, scattered in small clusters across the Grid, but I think it would have needed more leadership from the Lindens. It would need something more active than the Destination Guide, to connect the different locations.

What we have ended up with is the same sort of event as SL8B, and I afraid that style of event rather shows up some of the weaknesses of SL.

[Saffia Widdershins]

Hi Dave!

I think you do have a point that any large communal event will expose the weaknesses of SL in terms of its ability to being any number of script- and prim-laden avatars together in one location. It's particularly bad, of course, when a large number of them attempt to leap in at once - for example, the Opening, a popular musician or a really interesting talk. And you can double that when you have changeover - all Musician A's fans tp out just as Musician B's fans are tp'ing in.

You're right - events like this will expose the weakness of the system. And we did think about just going with the Linden suggestion and having small events across the grid (basically, just allowing people to get on with it - or smaller groups coming together on small scattered parcels of abandoned land).

BUT ...

We would have lost the sense of a shared community. We would have lost the joyous serendipity of seeing so much produced by so many within a relatively small, rich area. We would have missed being surprised and delighted by the unexpected, the beautiful, the weird and the witty (and perhaps the downright annoying). Would anyone but the most dedicated have followed a trail of builds that led to 5 exhibits ... and then jumped to the next group - not a couple of times, but severnty-five separate times? Wouldn't you instead have just visited a few friends' builds and then felt you had "done" SL9B rather than be able to turn from your friends' build and going, "What the hell is that????" and then wandering across the street to explore it?

You talk about leadership from the Lindens. But why should they lead this? It's not their birthday, it's ours (although Hamlet might argue for another date - but we seem to have chosen this by tradition now, rather like the Queen's official Birthday in June).

The Birthday has clearly long been a problem for the Lab and for the last several years they have been shuffling, clearly embarrassed, towards the exit. I honestly don't think we can expect to see them coming back, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, and proclaiming, "Hey guys - this is a great place for a party! Let's do the show right here! And here!" I believe those days are over; we are in a new era of professional relations with the Lab. If we want fun, we need to organise it ourselves - and pay for it.

I don't know about you, but I actually find that rather liberating. And I'm really looking forward to SL10B!

[foneco zuzu]

I loved Sl9B in all the ways and just regret , not spending more time there!

[Pussycat Catnap]

Initially planned to boycott in protest of LLs pulling out.

Started going as friends dragged me in.

I had a lot less lag at this one than I've ever seen in past. Perhaps due to the high presence of mesh; which tends to run faster than pre-mesh on systems capable of running it.

It was so smooth I was able to go to crowded sims and turn on shadows, play with windlight, and spam the feeds with screenshots.

The events were great, the builds were great - only a few commercial spammers got in under the radar. I've not been one for most events of late as they end up being nothing more than merchant spam-fests. This one was dedicated mostly to builds about communities and what folks love about SL.

I learned about a LOT of communities that I'd never heard of before.

I still need to go back and get notecards for about 57 of them... O.o

If a build like this was up 24/7... if even a micro version of it was the welcome area for people - some easy way to discover new communities without getting spammed by merchants or 'best in hoochie-mamma wear is up on the board, bring all your wish-they-could-be-crack-ho-friends' events...

- I think that is what would help with retention in SL.

I spent an hour of sunday morning chatting with a friend who's recently passed her first rezzday. She was bemoaning how hard its been of late finding people to meet and places to go. She's in that critical stage in SL where the things you did as a new resident have lost their magic and you need to find something that really syncs with you or SL will get set aside...

SL9B's style of builds would be the answer - you can run through there and more than likely find something.

My only frustration is that I know LLs is sitting there smugly feeling they made the right move in pulling out and making residents pay to host their party...

Oddly, there have been more linden sightings this last week than I've ever seen before. All over the place. Last year's SL8B - they seemed to avoid all but the keynote speeches. This year they've been all over the grid, and some posting journals on the feeds.
- I hope that continues as well.

[elizabeth (16)]

am with Saffia on the birthday

i think is great that linden is out of the social side of things. residents do it better

+
on a personal note and i not claim this for anyone but me

if i never see a linden inworld ever again then cool. woohoo!!! even

i just want them to make tools and stuff like make the grid go better and admin the ToS

dont need or want even any inworld cuddles and huggies off them. residents do that better as well

[foneco zuzu]

For once I believe, I agree with Pussycat!

[Shufei Zenith]

So the residents of SL put on an awesome bash exemplifying exactly why an extensible, culturally rich grid of long duration is important. The joyously elaborate exhibitions brought the greatly diverse communities of SL together with a spirit of mutual cooperation and discovery. All in all, it made an event that was one of the most fun I've had in any virtual world in years.

Despite all that, your only jaded comment is to limply snipe that we should go to that facebook ghetto Cloud Party?

Stay classy, Au. Stay classy...

[val kendal]

Yeah, I think it's an amazing testament to what makes SL great that residents took over this event and pulled off, imho, one of the better SLBs in the last few years - all with little or no help from the Labs (did they provide the old Time Capsules even?). I know some people did small, local SL9B celebrations, which is great, but having the 'big' one was very important to keep up a sense of community.

As was said on the event's blog (sl9b.wordpress.com):
"As we started pulling things together, I heard one question more and more … “Why are you celebrating Second Life’s birthday, when Linden Lab can’t be bothered to? Why are all you people putting in time, and money and so much work when Linden Lab can’t even drop twenty sims on the grid for a month and say, “Here you are. Get on with it.”
And, you know, I have an answer for that.
It’s not Linden Lab’s birthday. It’s ours."

I think there's an opportunity for this blog to cover the fact that the residents *did* pull this off, and are even planning for SL10B, and maybe ask for a comment from the Lindens.

[Hamlet Au]

I'm sure the Lindens will say something about how great it is Residents are so excited and creative, and isn't it wonderful that the community pulled together to do this. And that's very true. It's also true that the Lindens have made it extremely difficult to do large scale events like these at all, and haven't made fundamental improvements to make them substantially better, but still keep profiting enormously anyway. That's why I made the remark about Cloud Party, which wasn't intended to impugn the community at all. The community is not the company.