Monday, April 29, 2013

"Fallout Equestria" The MLP/Fallout Crossover Roleplaying Game


By Grease Coakes

The fad of MLP which is shorthand for “My Little Pony” has spread beyond the MLP sims and current pop culture. In a roleplay in Second Life, there's a roleplay which combines it with the popular "Fallout" computer game. The storyline has an alternate MLP universe in which Equestria was destroyed by nuclear war with the zebras. A friend got me into the game, which is currently full. Vadise and his friend helped me create my character sheet. I picked the gryphon species and named him Dusty from GI Joe.


Ahead of time Vadise told me to buy a die roller from the marketplace for all of 150L called “Ash’s Dice Roller”. That way I can roll dice within SL for the game. The game play between the characters was in SL main chat and skype. Everyone was laughing at the antics of the game.

The background of the game as I started at level 1 is after 200 years since the nuclear war, ponies and other species have lived in a giant stable or fallout shelter. Ahead of time I had to have firearms, negotiate, persuade, and unarmed 30 or above to be in security.

I made my red brown gryphon well rounded with 7 Strength 6 perception 9 endurance 4 Charisma 3 Intelligence and 3 luck. Like a table top roleplaying game I have to make rolls to see if I make the check or fail. In the MLP fallout game I have to roll under to succeed. So to make an endurance check I have to roll a 9 or under on a D10. Pretty simple for endurance, but I’d have a lousy time trying to succeed on a luck or intelligence roll. I use the ash’s dice roller to roll not physical dice.

As a security officer Vanilla Surprise, my boss asked me to look for some missing persons: a Pegasus, an earth pony, and a male griffin. With another griffin, a female named Vertiga, we went to sub level 6, the level which the three missing ponies and griffin were last spotted. Playing off my intelligence of 3, I played a goofy character who decided to shoot his beanbag shotgun at rats crawling on the ceiling on the sewer pipes. Apparently my shooting the sewer pipes caused a funny situation where pony and griffin waste spilled out onto the floor. Socket, an earth pony mare and the mechanic of the group, checked in on the situation. Xinka, a zebra character with magical abilities and doctoring skill, heard my shotgun blam and came to investigate.

Veritgia, my partner as security, yelled at me asking me for the shotgun and that I’m derpy. Socket made me clean up the mess I made with his cleaning machine. I failed the mechanical skill check and broke his cleaning machine to make things worse. Socket the mechanic was shot by a sleeping dart and almost fell asleep. The group tracked down the dart shooter and chased him down a stairwell. Socket the earth pony mechanic breathed fire down the stairwell, which I thought was derpy.

With the fire on the stairwell no one could go down the stairs to chase down the attacker. Socket went into the fire herself taking some damage, but instead I asked information from my pipbuck or PDA about the dart gun that the attacker dropped. The DM gave me information when I used my turn researching into the serial number on the dartgun and found out the name of the attacker. Alas it was a waste as the fire died off the group discovered the attacker was dead from falling and breaking his neck some distance from the stairwell.

Everyone gained 500 XP for completing the scenario. I asked do I get bonus for killing the poor rats and the DM (Dungeon Master) Razi said no.

When I talked with Vadise who plays Xinka the zebra mare said I played the character perfectly playing off the Intelligence of 3. Here’s what he said:

Vadise Sagukari: "You did excellent for a 3 int character. Like totally absent of reality. You were super fun."

Isn’t that what dice roleplaying is all about?

For more information on "Fallout Equestria", Click Here.

Grease Coakes

Friday, April 26, 2013

Club Cutlass

By Grease Coakes

One of SL’s oldest clubs is a steampunk/pirate inspired club. It’s been around for six years which is a long time for anything in real life or Second Life. Club cutlass may not be popular like IYC or SGB but it’s a long time staple of the Sunweavers. One day when I was djing Jenni Greenfield the longtime manager of Club Cutlass was a nice enough lady to tell me about her club. The Sunweavers are a group of furries that been around SL for a while headed by Rita Mariner who’s usually a bunny.


The Landmark takes you to a floating pirate base with a skull and cross bones dancing floor. In fact to dance you click on the dance floor and your avatar starts dancing in a complex series of dances. Not your average click a ball and pick a single dance ball, but instead a full set of dances to animate your character. Jenni says the club has been through many changes for six years. The newest design is simple and detailed for pirates and party goers of all ages.

One of the djs of Club Cutlass, Cynthia Farshore, likes to play rock music from old to new. Other clubs that came to mind were Dusk Griswold, Akea Grommet, and Shockwave Yareach. (No not the transformer the furry wolf named Shockwave).


Jenni said one of the cool things about Club Cutlass is how there’s little or no drama. One of the plaques I saw was “Drama Llamas will be and shot and mounted (not necessarily in that order).” Every week there’s three events as Jenni ask for DJs to fill those events. Each event has a contest for men and women to win a Linden prize of 200 or so. For example going through the alphabet one event was best in anything U. Lots of furries come to that event in their underwear and or an umbrella. Better ask quickly if you want to dj for one of these three events the slots fill up fast. I procrastinated one time and the next day the slots were all filled already.

I asked Jenni what she liked most about Club Cutlass and here’s what she had to say.

Jenni Greenfield: That we've lasted so long, while I've seen many clubs die after a few months.

That’s certainly true, I agreed. Not all clubs and hang outs stand the test of time.

Jenni said she loves Halloween events around Club Cutlass. I told her in real life that I have a velvet cloak so I never have to buy a Halloween costume anymore. She said something similar

Jenni Greenfield: "I have a black cloak with celtic markings!"

She also admitted to being a puppeteer for a long time like Dusk Griswold. I wrote an article about Dusk and her puppets in the SL Newser. Jenni says she has been puppeting since 2002, but hasn’t been practicing as much as her friend Dusk.


Jenni’s Club cutlass is certainly a neat club to hang out at. The music styles of the DJs are easy going and the conversation is laid back. Usually the DJs are good about music requests just ask and you shall receive. If you want a good place to relax and be a pirate Club cutlass is the place for you.

Club Cutlass is at Sunweaver Space (245, 88, 123), with parties on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 6 to 8PM SL time.

Grease Coakes

Monday, April 8, 2013

Freebies in Second Life

By Kitacelia

While Marketplace and Freebie Galaxy are two of the best places for many free and inexpensive items, it is a matter of simply using the right search or finding the correct floor in most cases.  Marketplace is by far better on free items than Galaxy,  as it is much larger.  There are others worth mentioning and exploring. 


For free furry avatars check out the AX mainstore. They have a huge amount of old avatars for free.  For textures, Nikita at Trianwe has a large selection of of textures, scripts and animations for free or cheap.  Kuwait freebies has a number of textures, as does freebie Folly Limeta at Skidz. Arcadia Asylum.  For those seeking free and low cost in the area of fantasy Grendel's Children and Phaze Demesnes are there for your needs if you are strapped for lindens. 

For those looking for pony freebies inworld, check out Derpyland and, Illusions Garden.  Please be aware these are General sims, so don't wear anything you wouldn't to a family  restaurant. or act like you wouldn't in front of your children or friends' children.   That brings us to well those looking for adult items. For adults with certain preferences check out Freebie Temple.  Freebie Textures carry the obvious and more.

Other places to go for free items include, Freebie France, Freebie Bazaar, Freebie Barn, Freebie Street, Freebie Zone, Freebie Fever Freebie Island, Freebie City, Freebie Dungeon, Freebies the Rock. Freebie Factory as well and Freebie Sandbox.  There is also the Freebie and Newbie area of Blackwater. There are also freebies at Equus near Areo Pines as well.  Caribbean Beach has a number of free items including tattoos. 

Last but farthest from least is the Enky's Dollarstore, which has many items for nothing or 1 linden.  They even have tinies dragons, and dragon tines for free, which is hard to find.  I know most dragon avs run over 1K so this was an exciting find for me personally.  

Unfortunately a few Freebie places have closed. Freebie Market is no longer in business. And two stores, LS and aquarium freebies no longer carry any free items I can tell..

Please be aware than any oversights with regard to listings were not intentional except when the subject matter was too adult-oriented for the paper or cases where mentioning a single freebie or two would be basically offering free advertising space for a store. I hope everyone enjoys reading about these places as much as I have enjoyed exploring and writing about them.  

Kitacelia

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Perri Prinz’s Green Meadows Club


By Grease Coakes

One day I sat down with the owners of the Green Meadows club Perri Prinz and RECoyote Mindes and asked them about their club, which was known as Xanadu before. Perri’s club is managed by Skylark Lefarve and is based on the Green Meadow Lands club in Perri’s very own writing series “Spectral Shadows.”

In Perri’s own words she explains, "Everything in Spectral Shadows is an allegory of something, mostly dealing with my internet and SL experiences." Perri said like Bixyl, I’ve been put in her story series as a reporter. Perri said I don’t have any super powers in her story, just skills as a reporter. Drat!

Perri explained that the club plays mostly various genres of rock, like 50’s rock and roll, swing, classic country, and classic rock and so on. The décor is very original like a 50’s swing wall design, plus album wall art all along the club walls. There are also retro game machines up on the upper floor. Not in the mood for dancing? Play a game of Pac Man instead. The arcade machines created from the real thing link to a game site where you can play the game matching the machine. Perri said that Truck Rolland designed the arcade games, but Perri designed the invisible overlays to lead you to the website.

There are a few vendors around behind you when you warp to the club selling disco outfits and more. Curio Draco designed the dance floor and when Perri asked for permission Curio said it was ok to use the artwork.

Later that evening, Cynthia Farshore of the Sunweavers DJed at the Green Meadow Lands club and she played her mix of classic swing and more.  A lot of avatars were dancing and having a good time on a Sunday night. Skylark Lefarve during every event has a Linden contest for best in something for both men and women avatars. So there’s good music and a chance to win at Perri’s retro style club.

The teleport carpet in the plaza also warps you to Perri’s gallery of Punk Hippie’s art work commissioned for Perri Prinz’s "Spectral Shadows. So if you’re in an art browsing mood by yourself or with a friend you can check out the gallery of artwork created by Punk Hippie. In fact she’s the same artist that drew the cover for my children’s book “Ginny Griffin’s First Day Of School”. Punk Hippie’s art style is very simple but professional in my opinion, with bright colors and a fair amount of detail.

Stop by once in a while to Perri Prinz’s club with live rock or also my DJ set 4-6 SLT on Friday nights. And also if you are a classic rock DJ looking for a place to perform, why not apply here? Perri is always looking to new dj talent to add to her club.

Grease Coakes

For the 2009 article on "Perri's Xanadu" as it was called then, Click Here: http://15timez.blogspot.com/2009/12/xanadu.html .