Tag: Event Gifts

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Ryan’s Quick and Dirty Guide to the 2022 Holiday Shop and Hop

Yes, I am still percolating, but of course, the holidays wait for no one! This year, the annual Second Life Holiday Shop and Hop covers 16 sims, simply groaning with discounted items for sale. And each vendor booth has a free Christmas present for you—and a few have more than one!

I have spent the past week scouring social media for information to learn which stores are participating in this year’s Holiday Shop and Hop, and what gifts each store is giving. Then I drew up a draft list, loaded up Second Life supermodel Moesha Heartsong, and hit all 16 sims, to pick up, unpack, and inspect each gift from that list. As more information came in, I edited and updated that list, and it is now at version 3.0!

This final list consists of my picks for the best gifts from this season’s Shop and Hop (mostly fashion for female avatars, but also some male fashion, as well as any offers of gift cards or free store credit). Each item on the list includes an exact SLURL, so you can teleport directly to the gift, pick it up, and head on to your next score! Having all one sim’s gifts grouped together means less teleporting back and forth between sims, a factor to consider early on in the event, when some popular sims get congested with avatar traffic.

I have posted that detailed list to my own Second Life group, called the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group (just search for “ryanschultz”, all one word, under Groups in Search, and you will find it easily). More information on the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group can be found here. The group join fee is only L$50, and you will find it money well spent, as I often share many bargains and freebies throughout the year, which never make it to this blog!

As an alternative to my list, or if you really want to make sure you haven’t missed any gifts that I skipped over, I still feel that the single best way to tackle the Shop and Hop events is to watch Naria Panthar’s videos on YouTube.

Naria always posts one or two videos where she unpack every single gift from the event, both non-wearable items and avatar clothing, and shows you what they look like. Watch the videos with the audio at two times normal speed, and keep a pen and paper handy to note the stores which have gifts you want (Naria herself recommends watching and listening at 2X speed, so it doesn’t take as long!).

Then, use this handy list which Linden Lab has provided to find your Shop and Hop store by name, teleport in, and snap up your present! (Note that, in some cases, a store SLURL from this list might accidentally stick up behind a wall or, in one case, on top of the roof! This is another good reason to join the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group—I have tested all the SLURLs, and that should not happen!)

The Holiday Shop and Hop event is on now, and runs until January 2nd, 2023, so you have plenty of time to pop in and scoop up some fabulous freebies for yourself!

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Gifts from the 13th Anniversary of the Fifty Linden Fridays Shopping Event

Have you joined the RyanSchultz.com Discord server yet? More details here. 

As you know, I am cutting back on my Second Life coverage, but I still wanted to bring to your attention that the the Fifty Linden Fridays (FLF) group is celebrating its 13th anniversary with a special sim groaning with free gifts! All you have to do is join the Fifty Linden Fridays group for free to pick them up.

In fact, there are so many gifts of avatar clothing, accessories, and home decor that I limited myself to showing you just two stores’ gifts, which make up a complete fantasy outfit!

A view from the back to show the detail on the wings!

From paper+antler come two gifts: these beautiful, resizable and adjustable pink-and-blue-wings and matching Minerva dress (the separate panties are included), which come in sizes to fit Maitreya Lara, Meshbody Legacy and Legacy Perky, eBody Reborn, and INITHIUM Kupra mesh bodies. I have paired these with the two gifts from Luas, the Triss horned headdress and a matching lantern with a high-priority Bento hold pose that works with your default animation overrider. (The shoes shown are the Amy ballerina flat fatpack from KC Couture, available at their in-world store or via the SL Marketplace for only L$175—a real bargain! You can tint the main part of the shoe, the sole, and even the interior separately, choosing from any of 40 different colours and textures. I turn to it often when I need flats to go with an outfit.)

There are so many more gifts available! I have posted a notecard with my picks for the best gifts, with exact SLURLs to each gift, in my RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group in Second Life (L$50 to join; more information here). Because the FLF event has a single spawn point in the middle of the two concentric circles of vendor tents, you will have to save the SLURLs to your inventory, then right click on them, and select “Show on Map”, then follow the red arrow to your prize! UPDATE Aug. 14th, 2022: It turns out you don’t have to save the SLURL to your inventory after all! Just click on the SLURL in my notecard, and on the window that pops up, click on the Map button, then follow the red arrow to collect your prize!

The Fifty Linden Fridays shopping event runs until September 2nd, 2022. It’s jam-packed now, but if you wait a week or so, you won’t have to fight the crowds. Here’s your taxi to the event. Enjoy!

As always, I will be posting many locations, tips and tricks to pick up even more fabulous freebies in my group instead of writing about them to my blog, so please subscribe and check the group often!

UPDATED! Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: A Quick and Dirty Guide to Gifts from the Second Life 18th Birthday Shop and Hop

The Second Life 18th Birthday Shop and Hop event is bigger than ever before—a whole sixteen sims of shopping! The event runs from June 17th to July 6th, 2021, and each store has a free gift for you.

Now, you could spend hours and hours fighting the crowds and lag, visit every shop, pick up every gift, then spend even more time unpacking it all. Or, you can save yourself some time and effort, and check out the bounty of SL18B gifts in two other, easier ways! This year, I am taking the lazier approach to plan my attack 😉

First, Naria Panthar has gone to all the trouble of picking up all the SL18B gifts, in the following two-and-three-quarter hour YouTube video, complete with her trademark hilariously snarky commentary as she unpacks and tries on everything! Just fast forward through the boring bits, and take copious notes on which sims and stores you want to hit, using this handy list of store SLURLs sorted by store name:

If a 2-3/4 hour video seems too onerous, Cat Pink gives you the highlights from all 16 sims in just fifteen minutes! Just remember to take notes and use the list of SLURLs sorted by store name:

Even quicker, bookmark this link, which contains brief descriptions plus pictures of each of the gifts, broken down by sim name. If you click on the date-and-timestamp of each of the 16 posts, you can see the images in a larger version. This listing is from the little-known-about SL Free and Inexpensive Items Russian-language group on Vkontakte, the Russian version of Facebook, which often lists items I don’t see on other freebie blogs; use the Russian-to-English translator in your Chrome web browser.

See? Easy peasy! Much less wear and tear on those virtual feet 🙂

I don’t have time this year to cover all the gifts available to you, so I picked just a few to show you. (They are all from stores on the Snapdragon sim.)

From the TO.KISKI booth comes this Leah metallic party dress/top, which comes in either white or silver, plus the optional Leah pants in either red or gold. You’re all set for a night at the disco!

The Leah set from TO.KISKI

Next up we have two gifts: this lovely fawn-adorned crop top from Entice, paired with the patent leather pants, a generous present from ISON (which come in a complete fatpack of colours!):

Top by Entice and pants by ISON

Store Credit and Gift Cards

The following stores are offering gifts of free store credit or gift cards:

Happy freebie shopping!

UPDATE June 22nd, 2021: I added three more stores to the store credit section (thank you, MizCarol!). In addition to the L$500 gift card, Monomania offers up this lovely pants and sweater set called Affection as a free gift:

The gift from Monomania

UPDATE June 24th, 2021: I forgot to mention that there is also a special area on the sprawling SL18B fairgrounds where you can pick up a whole bunch of free gifts from various vendors at one time (here’s the SLURL). Happy freebie shopping!!

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Gifts from the Eighth Anniversary of the Cosmopolitan Shopping Event (Part II)

You might be interested to learn that I was one of the people who won a free Second Life avatar name change in their recent contest! (I did pay to upgrade another avatar to Premium to change her legacy name; I posted about that saga here, with detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to change your legacy Second Life avatar name.)

So please allow me to introduce you to Asako Kiyori (formerly stuck with the rather unfortunate moniker of Zelda Leeming):

Asako is wearing:

Mesh Head: This is a static (non-Bento) mesh head called Du by Altamura, which I picked up a couple of years ago as a free gift at a small shopping event whose name I have forgotten; I picked a skin tone on the included HUD that matched the Jenny body below).

Mesh Body: the Jenny Altamura mesh avatar head and body I picked up as a hunt prize from the 2017 Women’s Only Hunt; the Jenny mesh body is now available at the Freebie Megastore at London City (free; one skin tone; has Bento hands and head; more information here); but please note that you cannot remove the head if you pick up the freebie version in London City!

Hair: Nebula by Firelight Hair (a former Advent calendar gift; the Firelight group is free to join)

Blouse: Never Surrender blouse in midnight blue by Entice (a free Advent 2019 calendar gift which is no longer available, but you can pick up the same blouse in a purple colour as a free Stay at Home Club gift at the Entice store).

Pencil Skirt: Moon black pencil skirt by Virtue (if I remember correctly, this wardrobe staple was one of the free group gifts from their Advent calendar one year; the Virtue group is free to join, and there are almost 50 group gifts at their gift wall at this exact SLURL).

Pumps: Jai pumps by Rowne (free group gift; group is free to join; these shoes come with a HUD with 15 different colours to choose from, to match just about any outfit).

TOTAL COST FOR THIS AVATAR: FREE! (As you can see, it pays to visit the Advent calendars at some of these stores every day in December!)

So, I decided to take my newly-renamed avatar over to the second round of the 8th anniversary of the Cosmopolitan shopping event to vacuum up some fabulous freebies to augment her wardrobe (here’s the SLURL; you will have to join the Cosmopolitan Club & Lounge group for free to pick up all the gifts).

Here are three dresses from the event that I quite liked!

First up is a sexy little red dress called Kiss – Red Star, from the AVALE booth—perfect for that (virtual) night out on the town!

Next is the 8th anniversary gift from Little Fox: this fun. curve-hugging, bubblegum pink Terry jersey dress! You can easily dress this versatile piece of clothing up or down as you desire with the right shoes, jewelry, and accessories:

Finally, we have the cozy brown knit Christie dress, the gift from Eternus, which comes with a separate gold-and-leather belt as shown here. You could easily wear this as a sweater over a pair of jeans!

This second round of the Cosmopolitan 8th anniversary shopping event ends on May 30th, 2020, so don’t delay, head down today!

Happy freebie shopping!