Tag: 114 Harvest

Loki Eliot’s Videos: Sansar Postcards

Given the current state of affairs at Sansar, I think it is important to document the many wonderful, beautiful worlds that designers and creators have built on the social VR platform over the past three years.

Longtime Sansar resident Loki Eliot (also well known from Second Life) has created a series of short videos in a series he calls Sansar Postcards, which he has been sharing on his Twitter feed. Because Twitter feeds tend to be somewhat ephemeral, and Loki does not have a YouTube account, I asked his permission to upload and share some of his Sansar Postcards with you here on my blog. Thank you, Loki!

The link below each video is the Sansar Atlas webpage for that world, in case you wish to visit and explore for yourself. I hope that this will inspire you to visit Sansar and discover more marvelous worlds!

Felsenmeer (by Silas Merlin)

Felsenmeer (Sansar Atlas page)

ZeroCheese World Hub (by ZeroCheese)

ZeroCheese World Hub (Sansar Atlas page)

A Victorian Christmas (by VintageTales, a.k.a. Mad-Eye and Solas)

A Victorian Christmas (Sansar Atlas page)

114 Harvest and 114 Harvest Village (by Draxtor, Ria, and many other creators)

114 Harvest Basement (Sansar Atlas page)
114 Harvest Village Sansar Atlas page)

Scurry Waters (by FullSpectrum, a.k.a. Medhue and Bagnaria)

Scurry Waters (Sansar Atlas page)

2077 (by C3rb3rus)

2077 (Sansar Atlas page)

Cerb’s Lounge (by C3rb3rus)

Cerb’s Lounge (Sansar Atlas page)

Fort Loki (by Loki Eliot)

Fort Loki (Sansar Atlas page)

If this whets your appetite for exploration, may I make a few suggestions of other Sansar worlds to visit? (The list of worlds in that link is from June, 2018, so a few may no longer be available on the in-world Codex directory.)

If you need some help getting started with Sansar (which does not require a VR headset to enjoy), here are some step-by-step instructions for newbies I put together last year (although it is also a bit out of date).

Sansar Already Has a Strong Sense of Community

My father, Hugo Schultz, was a machinist for the Canadian National Railway, and I grew up in the eastern Winnipeg neighbourhood of Transcona, home to the CNR Transcona Shops where he worked almost all his life. At the time of Transcona’s Centennial, CBC Manitoba reported:

Transcona was founded as the site of the repair shops for the Grand Trunk Pacific and National Transcontinental Railways. The name “Transcona” is an amalgam of Transcontinental and Strathcona, the latter from Donald Smith, Lord Strathcona, a former Manitoban who was instrumental in building Canada’s first railway. It was Lord Strathcona who drove the last spike into the CPR railway in 1885.

The CNR Transcona Shops opened in 1913, and during the First World War, the shops were used for the manufacture of munitions.

Transcona attained city status in 1961, and in 1972, it amalgamated with the City of Winnipeg, along with 11 other communities.

On the block where I grew up, there was a very strong sense of community. All the neighbours knew each other. Every summer the block got a permit from the City, and threw a weekend block party. Our house was in the middle of the block, so during the block party, people tended to bring over their lawn chairs and congregate there. We even had an annual North Side versus South Side volleyball game!

This all seemed so normal that it wasn’t until I grew up and moved away that I realized that this sense of community was not the norm. Many people nowadays feel isolated, even in the midst of bustling neighbourhoods.

114 Harvest 1 July 2018.png

The reason I am telling you all this is that today, for the first time in a long while, I had an opportunity to explore the 114 Harvest experience. Drax recently gave the houses lining Harvest Street to other Sansar residents to use, and people have lovingly decorated their virtual homes.

Here’s a glimpse inside Strawberry Singh’s tastefully decorated home:

114 Harvest 2 1 July 2018.png

(Note that in Sansar, just as in Second Life, it’s quite acceptable to explore other people’s houses when they are not there! In SL, sometimes people set up security orbs to turf trespassers, but most people don’t bother.)

And while I was exploring it struck me that, even though Sansar has been open to the public for less than a year, it already has an amazingly strong community. It may not be a very large community (yet), but it is robust, wildly creative and quite active.

114 Harvest 3 1 July 2018.png

A virtual world is not a success based on what features and tools it can offer; it is a success based on its sense of community, of belonging. This is what keeps people coming back again and again, to meet friends old and new and build something wonderful together. This is the secret to the success of Second Life, still going strong after 15 years.

Given its small but strong community, Sansar can already be seen as a success at this early stage in its development.

Atlas Hopping, Episode 31

Well, there was really no Atlas Hopping this week, due to technical difficulties on Drax’s end (Strawberry was unavailable as well). But I did get a great piece of news which I wanted to share with you! This picture from 114 Harvest is a hint:

Ria and Loz 24 Mar 2018.png

Riz Bazar (a well-known Second Life furniture maker and the builder of most of the wonderful content at 114 Harvest) and Loz Hyde (another well-known content creator in Second Life, who is also in Sansar) went and got married! Congratulations to Ria and Loz! Best wishes for a happy future together!

Both Loz and Ria have only just started putting content up for sale in the Sansar Store. If you want to support the happy couple, go and buy some of their products in Second Life or in Sansar!

 

Er… Make That “My Top Sixteen Sansar Experiences”

Ten days ago, I made a popular blogpost titled My Top Fifteen Sansar Experiences, where I assembled an unordered list of what I considered to be the best experiences on Sansar. It even got reblogged by New World Notes (thanks, Wagner!).

Well, something has been bothering me over the past few days, and I want to amend that list to add another extraordinary experience to that original list.

Number sixteen on my list is Drax and Ria’s 114 Harvest. I honestly don’t know how it slipped my mind when I was drawing up my original list! Maybe because I visit it so often, I just got so used to being there, that it stopped being a “special” place. That’s a mistake, and I am rectifying it today.

Ria, who did almost all of the design work on the experience, did a marvelous job, and furthermore, she has gone out of her way to redecorate for Hallowe’en and other events like Drax’s birthday. The level of detail, right down to the Mensch Ärgere Dich Nicht board game and the coffee cups to the covers on the books lying around, is astounding. Drax’s basement is inviting, comfortable, and has become a sort of central gathering spot for avatars in these early days of Sansar. (I understand that Drax is also planning to host a show there, once avatars can actually sit down!)

114 Harvest 29 Nov 2017

So, Drax and Ria, please accept my apologies for overlooking your experience. (I have updated my original blogpost content to add your experience to the list.)