Saving a sim

~~~

Part of my effort to help save a sim: Kuhr's Wholesale Liquor and Fine Tobacco

I don't know, maybe it's the phase of the moon or something like that, but lately I've found myself wandering from one sim to another that needs some help.

Things do tend to go in cycles, and everything has a life span, but that doesn't mean we have to just roll over and just say, "oh well, natural selection is inevitable--the herd must be thinned!" I admire the people who try to do what they can to revitalize a project that they care about.

One place where this process is underway is in Deadwood. Traffic dropped off and people found themselves struggling to maintain the sense of shared narrative that makes a place like Deadwood so special. I will confess that I was part of the problem: between the demands of real life and getting caught up in splitting my time between Deadwood and other sims such as Alsium and 1920s Berlin, I wasn't contributing much to life in the 1870s. We can only stretch ourselves so far, and we have to make choices.

So when the folks in Deadwood decided to not give up and to look at how they could work collectively to breathe some life back into the project, I became determined to do what I could. I have made my choice, and I will just have to spend less time with my Roman and Weimar era friends.

At present a significant effort is being made: sim owner Caed Aldwych has given a carefully selected group of die-hards and oldtimers permission to add new structures to the build and to provide "set dressing" to various environments within the rp area. The roleplay timeframe is moving into 1877, when the town had more complexity and socio-economic depth, and that should help make things more interesting. Rents have been reduced (at least temporarily) to encourage more activity. This enabled me to make my first contribution to the revitalization process: a wholesale liquor and tobacco store on Main Street.

My next production will be a blacksmith and farrier's shop located back off one of the secondary alleys, and I am looking forward to playing around with that (my friend Clay and I built a dandy smith's forge back during our time in Deadwood 1.0, and I intend to dig that out). Other people are working on projects such as the Gem and Bella Union saloons, a jail, a bank, and other diverse businesses providing goods and services that fit within the context of 1877-78.

To bump up interest--and traffic-some of us have been doing what folks in many rp sims do these days: setting certain times where people will concentrate on coming into the sim, so there will be more likelihood of having someone to interact with. Likewise, people like Clay (now known as C.T. Kungler) and the Leitners are hosting regularly reoccurring events each week, such as boxing matches and talent shows, which give people a reminder that the sim exists, and provide an opportunity to come together and see what can happen.

So far we have seen improvement in traffic, the sim looks good, and we've been having some fun. A few of us have been trying to encourage folks we know from other sims (and time periods) to stop by and try it out.

Is it going to work?

I've got no goddam idea.

But the important things is that we are having a good time trying. It kinda brings us back to an idea that gets trotted out periodically: that ultimately the quality of the experience we have in SL is shaped by our own actions and choices. If you sort of slouch around, expecting other people to entertain you or to keep things fixed and running smoothly, you're probably going to be disappointed.

So if any of y'all have other thoughts of how a community might try to keep their sim lively and interesting, I would appreciate hearing your thoughts.

~~~

The new Deadwood sim -- progress report one

~~~

At present I am very much convinced that doing the restart was the right thing to do. The sim not only looks remarkably unique, it's been full of players doing some fine rp, and some very interesting things are going on. People are setting up their rp businesses, including...yes...a laundry...run by Daisy and...you guessed it....me.

So, in a nutshell, much to my great embarrassment, I have found that it was simply too hard trying to have Dio not be a regular presence in the sim. Being Dio is just way too much goddam fun. She and Daisy have taken on some tents and begun taking in washing, as you can see here in the image above.



Nonetheless, I have been bringing in my other alts as well, trying to get some mileage out of them and developing their unique personalities. And they are already getting work too. Here is Malachi panning in the Whitewood creek. He's already done pretty well and made some alliances with other miners. By tonight he had created a sizable pile of "tailings" alongside the creek.

Incidentally Caed and Estwee have come up with a great panning activity--you buy the pan at the Bighorn store, go wade out into the creek, and then you can work the pan and hunt for "gold" that can exchanged for goods at the assay office. The one additional thing I did to enhance this activity (besides putting out some gear for ambiance) was to run a "rooftop crouch" pose while carrying out the panning activity. The anims worked beautifully together with the the avie actually squatting in the shallow water while working the pan, creating an overall very authentic representation of what it is like panning for gold in a stream.

I'm enjoying this all immensely.

~~~

Deadwood 2.0 opens

~~~

At 5:00 PM SLT time today, a group of avatars assembled on the parade ground of the recreated Ft. Laramie which serves as the entry area for the newly rebuilt Deadwood 1876 sim. Chief builder and sim-co-owner Caed Aldwych gave an introduction to how things were organized and what everyone would see in the new rp area: a more historically authentic build representing the mining camp of Deadwood as it appeared in the spring of 1876. Caed explained how certain buildings that should be there weren't in yet, how others that shouldn't be there had been slipped in for various reasons and that some of the terraforming remained to be done, but that in general, it was ready for us to begin to use it. He then lead us down to the new town.

The group departs from the fort. Ft Laramie was chosen as the build for the entry and orientation area because historically this post was the starting point for numerous wagon trains and traveling groups that were organized for the trip to the Black Hills in 1876.

The new town itself is very different from the old one: much more primitive with numerous cabins and tents, and only a few buildings made from cut lumber instead of hewn logs. A great many of the trees still were still standing and the entire feel of the build is very "rough and ready" in the frontier sense...the setting is very pretty but the town certainly isn't.

The new Main Street

Caed informed us that as time moved forward the log structures and tents would gradually give way to buildings sided with planks, and some of which will rise two stories, rather than just one. In the meantime, however, it is not a fancy place. I stopped and had a drink at a saloon and bath house that consisted of a large tent with some planks set up out front for a bar, and single wooden bathtub under the canvas. It's going to be a real different experience, I think.

A saloon tent on Main Street

~~~

Goodbye Deadwood 1.0 -- a Second Life experiment enters a new stage

~~~

Everything has a life span. The virtual town that I called home for over two years is coming to the end of its existence. Our sim owners Caed/Percy, Deac and Estwee decided that this weekend would be the weekend that we will "burn down the town." Then we will temporarily close the sim while they install the new build that will take us back to the spring of 1876.

Here's how Caed explained it on our Deadwood community forum:

"The Deadwood Fire begins on Saturday the 27th of 1879 sometime in the mid afternoon so as to allow as many as possible to show up. The day before (Friday) can be the run-up to the events on Saturday. After all the destruction, Sunday the 28th will be the closing party in the late afternoon/evening.

Timeline;

Fri the 27th, events leading up to the fire.
Sat the 28th, Deadwood Fire.
Sun the 29th, Closing OOC Party & final day to pick up prims.
Mon 30th thru Friday 2nd, Deadwood Rebuild
Friday 2nd 1876, Deadwood Grand Re-Opening at 5pm SLT


Rentals for merchants and players will operate much the same way as before with only a few 'minor' changes, and as always, rentals will be first come first to be served.

There will be plenty of space, tons of new buildings, more special 'named' buildings (Cricket, Senate, Progressive Hall, Shingle's, the Custer House Hotel, Bella Union, Iowa Restaurant, California Chop House Restaurant, Grand Central Hotel) and more, many un-named saloons, shops and residences will also be available to choose from."

The idea, if you missed the previous discussions of this, is to turn back the clock and recreate what Deadwood looked like when it was newly established, an illegal gold mining camp located on land that had been promised in perpetuity to the Sioux under the Ft. Laramie treaty of 1868.
You may recall that our first version of Deadwood was a remarkable experiment in historical roleplay as time moved forward in the sim: we started as mid-1876, and experienced the passing of the days, the turning of the seasons--and the progression of events as our own roleplay storylines mingled with historic events such as the murder of Wild Bill Hickok. We also witnessed the town developed, becoming more "civilized" and developing a more sophisticated social and architectural fabric.

It is now early 1879 in the Deadwood sim, and we are about to include one last historic event--a recreation of the great fire of 1879 that destroyed much of the early town. When the sim reopens, many of us will have new characters (I'm going to be splitting my time between Malachi--an older Black miner--and a Sergeant Major OHanlon, up at the fort). The environment will be very very different as well. We have done a great deal of research on what early Deadwood looked like, and Caed has been working for months on new structures and new terraforming that he will install during the brief hiatus. I think people are going to be surprised and impressed. The Deadwood build--even in it's first iteration--never looked like the other western builds in SL. This new build will look even less so: it will be a mixture of tents and cabins, some with canvas roofs, and a few others looking a bit fancier with plank false fronts dressing up their facades. It certainly is not going to be just another standard mish-mash of "old West" buildings.

Other folks have been working on new accessories and equipment as well--from mining gear, to new weapons, to more accurate clothing and furnishings. Everyone has learned a lot in the last two or so years and we're putting that knowledge to work.

Sadly, I am going to miss the end of the old build--real life work has me on the road for the rest of this week and into early next week. So this evening I went in and pulled up all my stuff (I didn't want to have it all returned as one big mass into Lost and Found over the weekend). So I started at the laundry--the first place I had in Deadwood.


From there, I went to the Blacksmith shop that I had set up for someone who suddenly decided to leave the sim, but I liked how it looked, so I kept it. Clay and I had a great time trying to make a forge for this shop because we wanted something that looked more realistic than what you usually see in SL blacksmith shops. I have always enjoyed collaborating with Clay. We give each other ideas, we share information and our different skills, and it's...well, it's just been a whole lot of fun.

Next, I went and cleaned out the wholesale liquor and tobacco shop I had set up with Blackjack--part of our "silent partner" storyline. Blackjack/JF has been a co-conspirator in some of the best rp I ever was a part of. I have had fun with a lot of folks--so many that I can't name them all. But there were always a few very special friends like Blackjack who--along with Elizabeth and Carrie Anne/Rachel, Roku and Sal, Clay and all his goddamn alts, Mahaila and Meri, and Lefty/Hawk and Brook--often had me moved to tears or laughing so hard I thought I was gonna puke....

Finally, I headed over to the hotel and cleaned that out. Sharing that with Cookie/Coodnank was a truly fascinating experience. I really loved working on fixing that place up and furnishing it as the town evolved, and places like the Grand Central became less primitive.

Then I went up into the hills and collected my shooting targets. I was thinking about the fun we had with the Deadwood shooting society--and the many happy hours spent talking about guns with Lock and Ernst and some of the other boys.

There's a few odds and ends left, but I guess it's ok if Caed just returns them during or after the fire. Street signs; a couple outhouses...oh hell's britches, there's probably something else I have forgotten. But I know one thing that won't be forgotten...all the friends and all the good times...learning and building, laughing and crying, shooting the same stupid griefers on different alts over and over...and creating some great characters and some wonderful stories.

I walked over the bridge one last time...

I think what everyone is doing here is very brave. In SL it's tempting to leave stuff up even after the life has gone out of it. To be honest, it really was time to do something different with the Deadwood concept. Even so, it's often hard to let go...to take all the hard work that has been done and dump it for something new. But the platform is a dynamic and continually evolving place, and to truly embrace it, you need to embrace the fluidity of it.

So I will let you know how the next stage of this experiment turns out.

~~~