Games in Second Life: Linden Realms and 7Seas

By Gemma Cleanslate

Bixyl asked what games do we play. I looked back in my life in sl and I still miss the old casinos , especially the camping casinos ,sorry to say. Sigh. I am not fond of the new gaming possibilities. So far I have not attempted any mostly because of laziness.

One game I still like is chasing crystals in the Linden Realms. It is "stupid fun" to run and escape the rumbling monsters that watch over the crystals and will get you if you are not fast or careful enough. That is okay because there are resurrection sites where you go after they kill you and begin again from there. You never lose the crystal points you have captured and when they are enough to matter you can go and exchange them for lindens. 

Each part of a realm is large and encompasses many adventures to run through. When you first arrive in the realms for the first time you will be asked to complete a quest. I did that years ago, but then you are free to run to any area of the forests, caves, mountains, hollows and find the varied colored crystals that stick out of the ground. Each color offers certain points to exchange. Not only do you have to watch the rock monsters but watch for falling rocks and many other very scary dangers. Try it for yourself. Read the rules and follow them or you will find yourself at home once in a while. 

You will automatically be wearing a hud that keeps track of your crystals while you are in the realms but don’t worry if it does not appear, your points are still added. The entrance is by teleport through a blue arch found at the Linden Portal Park.    

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Portal%20Park%201/69/66/23

Another game I play almost every day I am in Second Life for at least 30 minutes or possibly more if I have time is 7Seas Fishing Contest. I have been fishing for almost 10 years and not only fishing in contests but hosting them for various places. It is a social activity as well as a contest. All the fishers who are mostly too lazy to hold a rod so fish automatically with invisible rods. It is all random. 

As soon as the cast begins the fishers begin to collect various fish with points that are registered on a leader board that keeps track of the points of the top 5 fishers. At the end of the contest the top winners are rewarded with lindens and possibly trophies and other rewards. Bait is used in almost every contest and we must purchase our own bait. There may be a lot of grumbling taking place as time passes and the fish are not biting. 

Trivia questions play at some of the fishing holes and help pass the time. Conversations can range from fashion to food. Greedy game is available at some of the sites but I have never tried that. And there are many Krafties (another game I have not tried) enthusiasts who come fishing too and have their battles while there.  

There are other forms of fishing in sl but this one is my favorite. There are custom fish to be caught at many of the sites that people love to collect as well as the trophies. Those trophies belong to Grey Nacht who collects them and more. 

You can learn about 7seas Fishing at the website  http://www.7seasfishing.com/  or you can visit the headquarters inworld.  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Flotsam%20Beach/39/104/22

Gemma Cleanslate

Tiny Empires

About a month or so ago, I was pointed at the in-game game known as Tiny Empires. It's a simple turn-based hud game where you, in the role of lord and liege, need to gain land and gold (usually for a lord and liege that you're sworn to). The more gold and land you gain, the higher in rank you achieve.

You start as a Wanderer, and can advance all the way up to Queen or King of your own kingdom. As of this writing, I was a few acres of land shy of Prince; I've got a LONG way to go before I make King --- I have a gold amount in the hundreds of thousands; most of the Queens of the kingdom I am in are well into the millions and -make- millions per turn.

The first thing that I saw upon playing is that in order for you to get subjects of your own (or to swear yourself to a liege), you need to find a player who also has the hud attached --- all subjects and lieges in the game are other residents of Second Life. Then you stand near them and when a turn passes, the opportunity comes up to become their liege or subject (depending on rank). This can be good if you're social and hang out in a lot of social areas (where there might be many people playing at once, but if you're a social recluse like myself, you might have trouble finding a liege or subjects. Fortunately, there is a Tiny Empires Recruiters group you can join in order to look for other players.

The game has a trial period, after which you'll have to pay 800 $L to get the full version. For another 600 $L after that, you can upgrade to the Federation version, which offers a LOT more options (The Alchemist, a Festival every now and then, the ability to form Alliances with other players, and the Path to Royalty among them). You'd need to upgrade to the full version first before buying the Federation version, however.

During the game, the hud often will pose a "vote", or an event will happen that gives you gold (a "gold windfall"). So far there aren't any events that I've seen that drain gold (except if you bet wrong on someone during a festival). If your vote is in the majority, the Emperor will give you an amount of gold (and sometimes a kitten, I guess he's a cat person). Gold gained seems to be in proportion to the amount of land you hold; the more land you have, the richer you get.

Sometimes the Trader will show up (again, price of his item is based on land), and other times the Alchemist will show up ("The moon shimmers with a red glow") so if you somehow earned an item known as a Gold Bar, you can trade it to the Alchemist for a potion of some kind. Some potions grant gold windfalls, others protect you from "sabotage" (where another player damages your land and you lose up to about six or seven acres, and it can rebound against you!), and still other potions could get you more land the next time your Liege grants a land tract to all of their subjects under them.


After playing it for a month, I've found it's addicting enough for me to keep playing because I ended up in a group with a lot of nice people in it --- you can meet a lot of new friends this way. There are not a lot of events or variations of the vote, so you'll see a lot (and I mean a LOT) of the same stuff. It's also exponential --- the more you buy land, the more expensive the next acre of land is and the more expensive other things are as well. At the time I write this, an acre of land costs me 537,000 gold and the next one will be even more expensive. I think this game has the serious potential for improvement if the Emperor (Ultralite Soleil, the man behind it all) finds time to code in more features into the hud.

One thing made me think. What's to stop someone from making a lot of alts and using those as subjects and allies, padding someone's gold and land stash? I asked Ultralite Soleil this, and he basically said "Nothing's stopping people from doing that, but it ruins the spirit of the game." I like his honesty about that; rather than fight a losing battle against billions of alts, admit it's a problem and that if people want to do it that way, then fine. :)

I'm going to give the game Four Dragon Hoards out of five. It's fun enough to keep playing even if it is a bit on the repeating side. You can find it at the Kitster sim (149,42,53) and the $L cost is well worth it. There is also Tiny Empires 3000, which is essentially Tiny Empires in a space theme instead of medieval one.

Xymbers Slade