SL premium sale

Welcome to the Jungle: Second Life’s 12th Anniversary Premium Regions

Posted on June 15, 2015 Updated on June 24, 2015

Some of the loveliest people I’ve met in my 2nd Second Life journeys are from Australia, and I frequently marvel at how adept they and residents from around the world are at figuring out the time zone disparities when it comes to SL events. Second Life server time is the equivalent of Pacific Daylight Time in the United States, and many in-world events are timed to correspond with typical US work and leisure schedules so they can attract the biggest audience possible. Now you would think that someone such as myself, who happens to live in a place that syncs up with SLT, would be killin’ it with all my event attendance and time-sensitive deals, but that would be a logical and rational assumption, silly!

After reading all about the surreal experience of the LL gathering at Basilique, I really wanted to attend the next one, but y’know, life and stuff. /me sighs. I’ve also been sleeping really poorly lately, snatching cat naps here and there and working altogether too much for anyone’s good. So if someone would kindly clone themselves to my likeness and take care of all the day-to-day drudgery for me so I can enjoy my 2nd Second Life, I would be tremendously grateful! At this point, I’ll even take a trio of kitty cats standing atop each-other’s shoulders, draped in a trench coat and ginger wig. Hey, beggers can’t be choosers! ;)

Since I couldn’t make it to the LL Premium Member meet-up on Thursday, here are some excellent blog posts about the event and the special event area: Tymmerie Thorne, Inara Pey, Ziggy Starsmith, Markham Weatherwax. Interestingly, the SL Premium Coast regions are still open to the public (presumably they’ll be closed after the SL12B Celebration), so I sneaked over this weekend to take a look around.

My first stop was the crocodile wrasslin’ pit, because of course it would be. What else does one do at a deserted SL jungle-beach? I gave it a valiant effort, but after amassing approximately 17 pairs of prim crutches, I determined that victory was not to be mine. I’ll get you next time, Crocky McNibbles!

I’ve made a huge mistake.

The SL Premium Coast areas are split across two regions, which Inara notes was a very smart move on the Lab’s part to help ease lag during the meet-up. There’s are beach and bar areas, and various scenic spots for relaxing if you cam up into the jungle. Flying is disabled on both regions, but you may either use the Fly Override setting (found in the Advanced menu of the Firestorm viewer), or you can port around quickly by locating cushions and seating areas and choosing the “Sit Here” option from the right-click menu. As long as you’re clicking on a seat-enabled item within the same region, it should get you from place to place very quickly. That’s how I found myself on a lovely sunbeam-lit jungle pathway, climbing upward toward the curiously crumbling ruins.

Please click for full size.

While I had an enjoyable time peeking and poking around the SL Premium Coasts, the builds felt rather primitive, both literally and figuratively. There was mesh to be found here and there, but many of the items and objects were old-school prims and sculpties, and the animals had very rudimentary animations. Still, I found this to be charming and authentic in a way; it reminded me of Learning Island and the sort of vintage SL style that I associate with the in-world building and modeling tools. These aren’t slick regions by any stretch, but they still offer some pretty vistas for photography and general sight-seeing.

Linden Lab also sent out an email recently offering an incentive on Premium Memberships: 50% off for new subscribers, limited to the first billing period of the quarterly membership plan. As I wrote in my recent post, Second Life Premium Membership and Value in the Virtual World, I genuinely feel that the annual billing option is the preferred way to go, as it really is an exceptional value when you factor in the price break for yearly memberships and the amount of in-world currency that’s rewarded over 52 weeks. Still, this incentive would be a great way for new residents to try out the SL Premium benefits and determine if springing for a longer membership is worthwhile. The promo runs through Monday, June 29th!