Prehistorica: The Dawn Kingdoms

By Xymbers Slade

While wandering about the other day, I managed to spot someone in a tiny velociraptor avatar that looked incredibly well done. I got a landmark from them and immediately headed over to a place known as "Prehistorica, The Dawn Kingdoms."

I'm glad I did. I haven't been impressed by what goes on in SL in a long long long time, which is why I haven't written much for the Newser. However, here at The Dawn Kingdoms, I can honestly say I'm impressed by what I have found. You begin in front of the store, where there are tons of avatars to choose from, both sculpt and mesh. All of the classic favorites, from the triceratops, tyrannosaurus rex, stegosaurus, Pteranadon, and the ankylosaurus (my personal favorite) are available at about $2000L each. I did not look at the sculpts, but I only assume they're cheaper and are earlier versions of the meshes.

Behind you there's a portal to a few prehistoric-themed areas (jungle, beach, pond and some petrasaur cliffs, which I did not go exploring to on account of heavy lag). It might be slower on older machines because there's a LOT of stuff to load (it was very laggy for me, but it can't be avoided with the amount of detail that's down there, plus I have my settings on high, which adds to the problem). Deciding to splurge on myself I picked up an Ankylosaur and a Tyrannosaur.

Both avs I picked up come with three separate folders, and you -have- to put the folders on in order or there will be errors (according to the notecard)... you can't just throw everything into one folder and put it on all at once. The AO that comes with the avatar is very detailed and colorful, and best of all it seems to be -intuitive-, meaning that for those of us who never bother reading the notecard (such as myself) it's easy to figure out. There are about 16 different default skins, with room for four more custom, and 20 eye colors/four claw/four tooth skins. There are about 24 different gestures (six sounds, six combat, six poses, six "life" gestures, such as eating and drinking).

The "Extras" folder they come with adds some decorations (like a watering hole or some eggs) though I don't know why the folder would include some "gift vendors" scripted to ask you for permission to your $L account. That's my only bone to pick with the whole thing.

I'm giving the place five Dragon Hoards out of five without hesitation (even in the face of the "gift vendors", even though the T-Rex sounds make me think of the old movie "Jurassic Park" (what would I know, we don't know what they sounded like, after all). The avatars are well done for the price, the animation is great and they're cheaper than some of the other meshes I have seen. Having an intuitive HUD really helps.

The Dawn Kingdoms can be found at Fort Nowhere (130,127,1101).

Xymbers Slade

(For Becky Shamen's article on Prehistoria, Click Here)