Greed marvelous greed!!

Well, I am back for installment two.

Thank you for the comments I received in regards to my first blog entry. It’s great that people are prepared to identify themselves when you consider my words. I think it shows a lot of guts. For myself, I will never expose people’s names who did these things but I welcome it.

For myself, I have long moved on from the dark days when people took advantage of me for their own gain.

Well my SL friends, much has changed since I last wrote. I am now officially (and have been since last December) a landowner in Second Life!

I say that with my tongue firmly in my cheek because in SL you really don’t own anything, you rent it! And whatever, you are just renting a cyberspace. One flick of a server switch and your land no longer exists!

However, it’s the best we can do and hope for in this crazy second life!

I have to start by saying it actually is a great feeling to finally be in a place where my talents don’t have to be used to hold on to a small parcel of land. I can’t be kicked off now. It’s a full sim and most people who read this will be well aware of where this magnificent second life land is.

In my last blog I discussed Amy from Nature’s Way. Now there is a person who sticks to their word. Well, with the extra charges imposed by the Lindens late last year, Amy decided to close down Nature’s Way, one of the greatest sims in SL and move to Ozgrid.

An action group was formed to try and save this paradise which I joined. Nature’s Way or Buffys Cove struck me from the moment I saw it ages ago and like many others, I fell in love with the place. It was a massive influence on my work at other sims and I followed Amys landscaping theme right into Half Moon Bay at Natures Way.

I am happy to report my friends that after a lot of conversation and debate back last year, I am one of the owners and the builder at Buffy’s Cove at Nature’s Way!! My co-owners are just the best people and I won’t embarrass them by naming them here. All I will say is their generosity is fantastic. None of us make anything from it, we do it for the love of it.

We have been able to keep the sim open and in a fairly close state to how we took it over. This is not to say that there wasn’t a lot to do! The village there was in no state to use as Amy had just started it, but I could see its beauty and purpose so I took over and rebuilt it so it was finally finished. I have also added a new beach area near the entry point and added a few fun things into the sim. Its no sex island but runs almost like a real nudist island would.
It is a non profit sim, that is, you can’t rent there or buy anything from a shop there. It’s an open space sim run to the ideal that the Lindens wanted but we lost because it was so badly abused by money hungry landowners. This is the point I would like to make.

If you read many blogs regarding sl, you will see the bleatings of wounded landowners of open sims complaining when the Lindens put up their prices. While I can’t ever agree about allowing these areas to largely disappear, I can see why the Lindens did it.

Open space sims were supposed to be just that, places with little or no rental or retail areas. They made them less prims but they also cost less to purchase. In the spirit of the open sims, some people like Amy and myself, tried to make free wilderness areas hopefully that residents found beautiful and wonderful to relax in. Unfortunately, greed took over as it does so often. Some of the owners of open sim land sub rented and installed large retail shops on their land. The Lindens went, Hmmm, this is not what we wanted so all of us suffered. We lost our cheaper land for open space. So sad...

So, do we blame the Lindens? Or do we blame the greedy? Take away the greedy and the Lindens would never have needed to act, so, there’s your answer. Thank you to all the greedy land owners of Second Life! You know who you are! Lol You were the cause of these price rises. Please don’t complain about it now.

I think it would be good for all land owners to be forced into providing an amount of free space in their sims, just like happens in local councils around the world. A little town planning and bylaws would stop the ‘ugly’ sim and contribute to the beauty.

Now back to Nature’s Way.. Amy created a paradise with many others chipping in to make it the magnificent place it is. We have tried to operate the same way as what it always was. You will land on a jetty, you cant set a point to land in a fav spot. You walk over the hill, past her beautiful falls and secret cave and the recently installed lighthouse and you still jump off the famous wooden walk down onto the beach.

You will laugh to see a whale (that we freed) in a small lagoon and will marvel at the technology of the talking cheese plants. Hopefully you will almost feel like you are walking along somewhere in the Greek islands if you take the long walk around the promenade. You will probably also ask why there’s a toxic waste drum sitting in a pristine perched lake in the mountains, I know I did and still do!!

We have tried to leave these items as a testament to Amy’s sense of humor and to support the unique nature of the sim as many have marked it as their favorite over many years now.

I would personally like to thank everyone for the support I have received since being there. I have never seen a sim where long-term visitors are welcome and no fee is charged yet who see it as their right to tell us exactly the way the sim should be! Ha haaaaaa And, we actually listen and act if we agree!

To all those that have worked on this sim in previous times, thank you. It’s a mark of your talents that four strong willed residents agreed to pay real dollars just to keep this sim open to the public. Please, if you do have a spare Linden or two, there are enough tip jars on the island to really help us along in our plan to keep this beautiful place open.

There’s no egos, no kings, no queens, no boss, no penalties to dish out, just a beautiful natural place where you can come and relax and stay as long as you like. All we ask is you follow the easy rules and don’t grief anyone. What could be easier or better?

Love to see you on the island soon!

To all, love and peace always.

Teresa.