Back in Kitely with Birchglen

The first massive chunk of land I ever had in Opensim that wasn't self hosted was in Kitely. I had a 4x4, and it's where Ravens Reef fully became realized. My goal was to make a roleplay community that was accessible all over Opensim, but after the initial setting up I sort of powered out. My goals seemed unreachable unless I was going to sink a lot of time into being in the town on a regular basis to continually encourage the roleplay - and life had a lot going on so that wasn't happening. 

I ended up back in InWorldz and condensed my 4x4 idea that I had created in Kitely into a 2x2 in InWorldz. 

After InWorldz I went to Digiworldz for a while and Tag grid, and finally settled on 3rd Rock Grid to load my 4x4 OAR that I had from Kitely as a permanent home. Ravens Reef is still  in 3rd Rock Grid today. No longer with ideas of it being the best small town RP ever - now it is just themed residential. The back story is still posted for those who do want to RP however. 

So Ravens Reef had been a thing since 2015 app. And every grid I went to I simply dragged it along with me - and recently I wanted to do something different. 

I missed Birchglen. I have for a good while. Birchglen was the name of the town I created in InWorldz on my very first region Diamond Valley. It was on the IW mainland across from IDI.

So I decided to get a 2x2 in Kitely again and recreate Birchglen. But this time it is a 2x2 and not a single region, like it was in InWorldz. 

It's been so nice to putter again with the very small details. Just taking my time to fill things in and make it feel comfy and real. 

And it's funny - In Digiworldz I see there are 70-80 people online sometime, but I rarely run into anyone. In Kitely I have no idea how many people are on, but perhaps because of the very intuitive Explore Worlds section of the website I end up getting people popping in all the time and it's great. Just the other day I spent the evening visiting with Koshari of Four Winds, we were testing out all the rides of her amusement park and chatted up a storm. She is SUCH a lovely person! 

I have new people plopping in looking for things, or to ask questions or just to visit. And likewise I use the World Search section and find all sorts of amazing regions to explore. 

It's been a blast. I'm glad I decided to rebuild Birchglen. Kitely is very stable, the marketplace is so easy to use, and the back end for region owners is great. I've never found a region easier to set up or manage. 

Come by and visit sometime!

Oh!!!! And there are mesh avis for kids in Kitely Marketplace! Totsipops! 

So, that's about it for now - here's some pics :)

Islandz is closing down - a great time to do something different!

At least it wasn't up long enough to allow people to get too comfortable there. I'm sad for those affected by it but I am not surprised.

So there has been talk about how easy it is to just start up your own grid,  make your own rules, yada yada… lots of things that are 'easy' to do are also very draining and demanding. However, hats off to those who feel the calling.

I had been visiting some really nice places in Kitely lately and attended their weekly Community Meeting,  in which Ilan had talked about a pretty cool offering for Organizations (a grid within a grid, or a mini grid of sorts) and improved search. Read all about it here https://www.kitely.com/virtual-world-news/2019/01/11/introducing-organizations-virtual-grids/ There are a lot of reasons why this might be a great idea, and I will go over some of it below.

There is a special on til the end of this month... so TWO more days - It's an  Early Bird Special 30% bonus on the starter and 50% bonus on the standard.
It is a great way to have  some control over your virtual space while at the same time still having things taken care of professionally. Whether you are an educational organization or a large group of roleplayers wanting a somewhat separate existence, this might totally work for you.

You get your own log in page,  avatars for selection and even something called Setup Kitely which is "a program whose purpose is to help the Organization’s users, who might never have heard of OpenSim, visit the Organization’s worlds for the first time.

Setup Kitely runs on Windows and Mac computers. It helps the users download the correct version of Firestorm for their computer; add your Organization’s Virtual Grid to Firestorm; choose their avatar; and enter one of the Organization’s worlds."  There are many things in place in order to provide a great learning or collaborative platform.

This could benefit those who now have no choice but to leave Islandz (formerly InWorldz) but still have projects they would like too work on with others. Prices for worlds within these Organizations are the same as regular worlds in regular Kitely.

So, for example, a starter organization is 49.95 and has a 30% bonus right now of allowing 130 users and 13 worlds. Each world can have from a single region to a 4x4 (16 region equivalent) and those prices range from 14.95 for a single region up to 39.95 for a 4x4 with 120,000 prims! So many prims! That 49.95 would get you a management website for your organization hosted within Kitely.  It would give you an avatar selection (you can also make starter avatars by adding your own custom avatars to this list by copying the current appearance of your own avatar) , your own management website page, grid log in uri and more.


Some Upcoming Advanced Features include:

• Customize the viewer login page (what appears in Firestorm before you login)
• A user signup form that you can host on your own website

There is really a lot to see, please check out the links above and take a look at all that's included. The bonus lasts til January 31st! Maybe for some of those displaced by the InWorldz->Islandz shut down! 

At The Sidhevairs - Kitely

Raven's Reef - Kitely

The Sidhevairs - Kitely

Raven's Reef in InWorldz Officially Closed

Although it was a really hard decision, Raven's Reef - which was located on the Prickle Pear Bay region of InWorldz mainland - has been taken down permanently. It was intended to be a 'create your own story' - live there, play there kind of thing. But there just seemed to be too little interest in that sort of genre.

Goodbye Raven's Reef InWorldz

For me - well I love urban themed regions and genres. Not necessarily those kidnap/violence RP themes - but just a run down city and the colourful inhabitants and storyline potential. This wasn't as big of an interest for others and visitors to the region had become so infrequent that I coudn't justify keeping it going, so I decided to let it go and concentrate solely on the Raven's Reef 4x4 urban rp varregion in Kitely. It isn't super active there either but there are a steady stream of hypergrid visitors that find us via opensimworld.com

Come visit (search Raven's Reef on the map in Kitely) grab a free starter avi, find your groove. We'd love to have you. Also, be sure to visit our site http://ravensreef.shivtr.com

Do you want to help move Raven's Reef into action?

The land, the builds, the website - all are pretty much ready to go. There are even some starter avis in the info centre to get people started.

One of the male starter avis

What we DO need however are people. Not just those who want to roleplay, but those who would like to take on roles as citizens in the town.

There is a partially equipped hospital that needs staff, and any additional props you want to add. There is a police station and a firehall as well. We also have a highschool that will be geared toward older students, given the rating of the region in general. (so ya know, a school full of 18+ers - its an old town, the fail rate is high haha) So teachers, clergy for the church, merchants in general.

There is a lot of room for character development within Raven's Reef and we'd love to have your input.

The streets at night

Take a look at http://ravensreef.shivtr.com to read more about the town, and if you have any experience organizing roleplay, or if you feel inclined to take on a role in the town please just let me know. You can do this by messaging me at G+, or joining the site and contacting that way.

Active community members will get free housing. Either in some chosen homes available, or above the shops if available. (some of the stores have apts above)

You don't have to be a Kitely resident to participate - feel free to come on in from anywhere.

*cheers!*

Raven's Reef High

Urban Role Play in OpenSim

Well, I've been quiet on here lately. A few days after my last post, we had a tragic loss. A death in the family. Most often I keep my real life and my virtual life separate - so I don't want to go into detail - but needless to say, life spun upside down and it's been a difficult time.

Some of my focus changed in my virtual life. I found myself puttering more, and making distractions for myself. Creating an alternate reality in the form of Raven's Reef in Kitely.

Now, to clarify - this idea first took hold in InWorldz about a year and a half ago, albeit on a smaller scale. My good friend and co-conspirator Simone Geddins and I really wanted to bring some of the Urban Glory of the Second Life grid into our land at InWorldz. Her and I really loved doing urban roleplay in SL, finding neat little towns that we could 'move into' and become part of the scenery.

Taking it to Kitely however was a bit different. It started a few months before my family tragedy. I had decided that I wanted to take what we had done in IW and do it on a larger scale. It was initially quite a challenge. Not just because I was suddenly working with a 4x4 (equivalent of 16 regions) but because I needed to find the same sort of items to create a similar ambiance. Luckily my partner Curt Halberd had also set up a second Domus homebase (the name of his store in InWorldz and Kitely) and THAT meant I could get many of the same builds I had in InWorldz.

There was also a lot of free/copyable stuff in OSgrid at Cardboard and Rust region. Between those two sources I was able to get to work on this mega sized version of Raven's Reef. But it was still a large project and I sort of worked on it just little bits here and there. However the past few months I have been putting in a lot of time, and really enjoying myself.

Something about having a vision and seeing it take form on a virtual canvas is quite awesome. So bit by bit this place is becoming everything I had envisioned for it. The website for it is http://ravensreef.shivtr.com , and there is also a page for it at OpenSimWorld - http://opensimworld.com/hop/76689-Raven-s-Reef

Come check it out!