Click and Crash: The New Way to Play

After the most recent Second Life update, on Wednesday, August 23, I have had some niggling rezzing issues and what appears to be a failed script in one of my winged avatars. Overall, it was nothing I was overly concerned with. In fact, I took the annoyance out by hacking and slashing some NPCs over in WoW. Yesterday, however, my experience in SL took a decidedly more annoying turn.

While the first crash and burn was annoying, each successive instance proved more and more frustrating. In essence, each time I clicked on a scripted object, I was summarily bounced from the grid. When I attempted to relog, I was met with a message that I could not be logged on and the client was beginning the logout process. Inworld contacts informed me that SL still indicated I was logged on. Second attempts to logon were successful and the whole process didn't take much time....unless you have to do it 5 or 6 times.

The first few were accidental, but the rest were attempts to recreate the crashes. Time and again, I was throw back to real life when I attempted to click for a notecard, open a door or unsheath my samurai blade. I learned my lessons, made my bug report and ceased trying to do anything as simple as opening a door. This did not prevent me from making my way across the grid to a couple of interesting sims, Walden Woods and The Woods, both nicely done sims, though light years apart in concept.

Walden Woods is a virtual representation of the Concorde, Massachusetts location where H.D. Thoreau wrote the novel, Walden, during a roughly 2 year stay. The virtual Walden is an attempt to educate folks on Thoreau's philosophy of life, nature and everything. A beautiful wooded sim with pond, ducks and walking path, Walden Woods surely captures the serenity that the Thoreau ideal strives for. Sounds of the woods and a quiet location certainly has a place in SL and can be a nice place to visit.

The Woods - Northern Woods of Gor was equally well done, though of a markedly different character than Walden. Landing in a small corner facing the carcass of a beast of burden and a burning cart, visitors are hit with the rules notecard immediately. Not unusual in a themed RP environment such as this. The rules and the consequences of deviance from those rules are layed out plainly. Home to the Sa-Ta-Tor Panther Tribe, the Northern Woods RPers seem to take their RP seriously and expect you to as well. I found no friendly visitor tag and no invitation to check the lay of the land. However, as there was nobody around, I scouted it out anyway. Nicely built and following the theme from corner to corner. I was impressed and loved the look of the place. I make no commentary on the Gorean RP and was not subject to any so I wouldn't have much to say about it anyway. I will say that it was worth my trip and I arrived back in Notata without a collar.