Some Moving…..

There is a bit of transitioning that has been going on behind the scenes, which is part of the reason that I have not been available to post.  Real life had danced with illnesses back to back, exams, and other things.  Its been a two month over run, so to speak.  April will still be filled and May I will have some time freed up for virtual wonders and games.

I will write more as I can.  For now, please take note the the blog is moving to my domain as I am centralizing my content.  You can find it at www.neoma.oncedarkness.com – the content here will be shut down at the end of the month.  I am moving away from the NVhe name, because there are three real life entities that use Nvhe as their initials.  To avoid confusion, I will be re-branding old content and releasing new content under the name neoma.  I am changing strategies with my content release as well, so that it is available to Open Sim as well as the virtual world of Second Life.

Until then…..look for the rest of the blogs to appear at the new address.  😀

Virtual World Drama

It has been an awesome real life day.  I had just finished checking my email after getting home from a great unplanned dinner with my Mom.  I love her so much!  Anyway, in my email I get these messages that were sent to me by someone that was aggravated by my partner.  I have to address this issue because it happens so often in virtual worlds for some reason.

If you have an issue with someone, telling their partner to pass messages to them is NOT the way to handle the situation.  Please take the time to talk or discuss the matter with the person you have an issue with – directly.  If they are offline, well, wait until they are online or just send a message and get the ball rolling.

This person was upset because my partner apparently was in their house.  Sheesh, I am sure it was a mistake, but you know, I was not there.  He doesn’t normally just pop into people’s places for the fun of it.  O.o  Nevertheless, it is not my issue and I am not his Momma.

So I did what most probably won’t do and sent a message thanking them for their messages (as lovely as they were – not!) and telling them to deal with him directly.  I will not do message passing because it is just silly.  I mean, think about it.  You are telling on an adult to another adult.  What is the expectation here?  Do you honestly think that an adult has that much control over another adult.  Am I expected to yell at him as if he were a five year old that crossed a boundary line?  What is honestly the deal here?

At the end of the day, regardless if it is real life, a game or a virtual world life, you need to deal directly with the person that you have an issue with and resolve it with that person.  No one else is responsible.  Just because someone is related, partnered, married, significant other or a friend does not mean they should be involved in the mix.  It just creates unnecessary drama between people that had nothing to do with the initial issue to start with.

I know I am ranting, but this is the sort of thing that annoys me.  Life has enough issues regardless of what realm it happens to exist within.  Things are much more simpler if  they are dealt with the person that has an issue instead of the person, their cousin, uncle and a friend.  Hopefully, this person will understand my message back to them, but somehow I suspect that they won’t.

Success! Land Has Sold

Last night someone came by and purchased the large parcel of land from me.  I had an additional 512 plot that I simply abandoned.  It was up for sale for a month with no takers.  The large parcel went just in the nick of time.  I was actually starting to mull over the idea of just abandoning it.

I know, many people think that is a silly idea, but you really have to weigh the costs of the land tier versus what you gain from the land sale.  It was a very uneven match and I did not want to have to do another tier payment after this month.

This has also allowed us to remove the NyteVargas group from the virtual world as well.  The NVhe group is sufficient and right now open for others to join at will.  We will be closing it and setting it to be join with a payment because group gifts and supporters will be able to access the gifts we release or do beta testing of creations in this group.

Right now our next step is to get all of our stock of eyes up on the marketplace for people to be able to access and update our marketplace information so no one is teleporting into a place that no longer exists.  (We still have pictures though! :D)

This is our goal for November.  Simple, accomplish-able and the first step in an exciting new adventure.  I will be visiting the premium sandboxes each month, writing about the experiences there with some snapshots here and there.  (See the evil grin!)

It is time to start the new chapter in this virtual world as a partial gypsy.  At least I have my tiny home to land and change clothes.  It is certainly about the need, so this experiment will be interesting and a great adventure.

With the virtual worlds current premium account offering is there a need or an enticement for an avatar to truly own more land then the Second Life house provided?  Are stores necessary in world?  Does a physical in world presence (such as a store) make a difference to one’s sales or created content?

I already know that the lack of a physical presence makes your avatar friends slowly forget you.  I also know that the lack of a physical presence can affect your sales.  You must socialize, but socializing does not necessarily mean owning or holding land.

So onto the grand adventure to find the answer to these questions.

Three Small Mountain Mainland Parcels

We cleaned up enough of the items on the land to put up three small mainland parcels for sale in the virtual world of Second Life. This is part of our plan to reduce our land holdings. Two of the parcels are 512m and are located side by side. The third is 1504m, also located next to the two 512m parcels. We placed the 512m parcels at 260L each and the 1504m parcel, I believe is at 900L.

The next set of land that will go up for sale won’t be until October 31st or afterwards. I had provided the tenants with the ability to stay until October 31st. One remains. All rental unit boxes are removed with the exception of that particular tenant.

I removed half of the apartment building, so only one tower remains standing. The store is still up and the corner closest to IEVL’s parcel is still there for me to clean up.

We have already sold the ten 512m parcels we had up for sale earlier this month. The goal is to shape the largest parcel in a nice perfect square or rectangle. All the side lots we had purchased once upon a time to ensure we had enough prim space for the tenants are what we are selling as we get parts of the land up for sale. Once the 31st hits, we will clean off the remaining items and the rest goes up for sale as one large lot, slightly bigger than a 1/4 of the mainland sim. It is also the flattest area on the mountain in this particular sim.

Progress is being made and we are so excited. This means November will bring new exploratory in world adventures. 😀

Breaking Down & Building Up

Today we removed one of the towers from the apartment building since there were no more tenants in that half of the building. The other tower still has one tenant, so its there until he moves or until the 31st, whichever comes first.

We picked up all of the grasses, trees and plants around the side that was removed and are down to one corner of the parcel to clean up and my store. This coming weekend, I will more than likely be spending time updating our eye ads and getting things ready to upload onto the marketplace. IEVL is thinking about cutting his parcel down to half the size it is as well, but hasn’t fully decided as of yet.

So much to do and its all exciting! I have new eyes to release as well, so the timing is good. Like tasks done together! Whoo Hoo!

I need to plan the next adventure. I think it will be a round of visits to the premium sandboxes to assess, do a bit of playing and planning. Maybe I will meet actual residents that say Hello! O.o LOL! At the very least I should see some interesting builds littered here and there.

And so we are onto our next chapter in the virtual world of Second Life. I could not be more excited about it!!

Movements Towards Migrations

We have one tenant left at N’Vhe in the virtual world of Second Life.  The rest have all vacated and I sent back all objects belonging to anyone that was not currently on the parcel.  I still have quite a bit to pick up of my own belongings, as well as two Meeroo’s to turn into pets and the others to set free.

Its not even mid month yet, so we are moving at a very good pace for cleaning up the parcel and getting it ready to sell.  To be honest, I am very excited.  I also have a set of mermaid inspired eyes to get on the market as well.  😀

Meanwhile in 3rdRock Grid, where they love to rock things…..

We have our N’Vhe sim.  Its beginnings are right here.  We had to terra form the land and now its time to really get into exploration and creation. Below is N’Vhe as it sits in 3rdRock right now. The building in progress is the first official building I have made.

Looking out at the sea after all the hard work. I wonder what type of adventures we will have here!?! We have meet many awesome people. IEVL is already doing a scripting job for someone.

Today this is N’Vhe as she sits. Still under construction, but the building is done. The first floor is our store that we need to fill up with things. The second floor is our work space. I have to make our landscaping items, but first I need to figure out how to build and remember how to create sculpties.

The land costs so much less here, the people are extremely friendly and there seems to be much potential with this world. I love the community spirit, even if its hard for me to participate. I think it is awesome that we have a community to draw back on. Friends come easy here!

Important Decisions for Virtual Living

Living in virtual worlds sometimes brings choices that we never thought we would make, or rather, choices we never dared to think about.  However, in the virtual world of Second Life as they are making changes to the Premium Account, of which I am, there are some important facts I need to acknowledge.

The Marketplace online is where most people buy product.  In fact, aside from friends that know me, the only place people buy my eyes is on the Marketplace.  This is hard for me to ignore and it is telling me that, honestly, there is very little need for in world stores.

It also used to be that it was a great thing to own land in the virtual world to either have one’s home, store, business or space to build.  Now that there are sandboxes that are made just for premium accounts, there really is no need to have a private space to build.  I am not a builder anyway.  I just need a place to rez a photo booth and snap pictures for ads.  I can easily do this in a sandbox.  I do not imagine premium sandboxes are faced with the same types of griefers.

Also as part of the premium account, one can have a free house with 512 prims to spend.  While that does not seem to be a lot, it actually is quite a bit.  If you bought a 512 parcel and had to place a house, you would be working with much less.  For someone like me that is not in world everyday, I really just need a place to change and sit when chatting with others.

Sooooo, I have decided to sell off the N’Vhe parcel in its entirety.  I will maintain my little free house that they give me for my account type, use the sandboxes and if I really want to be alone, well I can zip over to IEVL’s place.  The skybeach is going to be located at his parcel for now.

I really think it will be more realistic and manageable.  If I were in the virtual world everyday, then I could see maintaining the half sim parcel.  The truth is, I am in a few days out of the week and for less then ten minutes at a time.  Just enough to check on my tenants.

We gave notice to our tenants last week.  They are filtering out and we have the die hards left.  They have until the last day of the month.  After that we return all items and put it all up for sale.  If the land doesn’t sell by the end of November, I may just abandon it.  After all, we more than received the enjoyment out of the parcel for what we have paid into it.  At any rate, I am not to worried about it.  Actually, I am excited.

We also have been experimenting with 3rdRock Grid.  I know there are many worlds out there, but this one seems to be the most community based.  It is not like the others and it does seemingly have grown a bit slower.  Yet, they do know how to provide great customer service, the residents are awesome and its a bit like the last frontier in a way.

There is not much there by way of awesome clothes, hair or products.  The world is really still inventing itself.  Instead of items, they created a managing community that works together.  I truly believe the rest will come.  The draw back is the inability it seems to exchange your virtual world currency for real world dollars, but at this point it is not a big deal.  They have a currency system that works.

IEVL and I wanted to be someplace where we can be in on the ground level, be part of its development and create economic opportunities within the virtual world.  This will happen slowly.  There is a lot to get done.

We did not give up on Second Life.  I am excited about the changes there as well.   It just doesn’t make any sense in keeping all the land if it really is not necessary to have in order to accomplish what we normally do in that virtual world.  It has become somewhat of an obsolete item to own mainland, at least for now.  We will see what they do and what changes they make down the road.  I will still be adventuring in the various places that exist within Second Life and writing about them.  😀

The Sunset at NVhe

Virtual worlds can have some incredible views, just like real life. I can’t physically feel the coolness of the air slipping in as the sun sets and night begins to fall. Nor can I feel the heat from the sun or the wind ripple past me as if it is trying to dance with me.

However, the power of the mind is incredible. I can see sunsets such as these and just through the memories of such experiences that are recorded in my mind, I can actually feel the wind, the coolness of the air and the sun.

It is in this place that I can relax while my children sleep, write, study or finish homework. It is my favorite time and my most productive time. Creativity embraces me, affecting everything I do in that moment.

It may be virtual, but it does have its own reality that is incredibly real. The memories are very similar to those from the real world.

Here sits my nightly sun set experience that I am privileged to share with those visiting NVhe and those living on NVhe with me.