There are some content builders in Second Life™ that simply take your breath away. Some virtual environments have the ability to immerse you wholly in the experience of the place so that you forget for a time where you are. That you are sitting in front of a computer instead of walking through the moors and being taken away by the beauty of it all.
This particular area of virtual beauty (AOVB) belongs to the brilliant builder AlchemyImmortalis Cyannis. It is divided into three sims of winding moors and crashing waves. Poetic stone walls that divide the meadows and rolling hills that border the quaint old Irish towns and cobblestone walkways.
The three regions are named:
The sim is best viewed with the builders custom windlight settings that can be downloaded by clicking here. Try to catch a thunderstorm while standing on the moors. It is simply inspirational.
The attention to detail is striking as you wander through the gorgeous landscape and enjoy some haunting Irish folk music on the stream. Each sim is an experience unto itself and the Empress and the Hierophant region will be featuring a “Bed and Breakfast’ which is listed as a coming attraction.
For individuals who are interested in travel but find themselves with limited financial means to do so, these virtual environments provide the opportunity to experience other cultures first hand and in three dimension. An avatar interacting with the sights and sounds of the region can come away educated and with a deep appreciation for cultural diversity.
Digital tourism is a growing business. One of the major attractions of Twinity® is the prevalent accuracy of its European metropolitan builds including Berlin and London, England which actually promote tourism as a key feature of that virtual world. Twinity also does an excellent job of offering pre-fabricated residential units so that avatars can reside in the region meeting real world inhabitants and other enthusiasts and shop the host of businesses and products that are offered.
It would be interesting to see similar supports from Linden Lab for content creators that provide high quality builds. Perhaps a reduction in tier costs? Something that would ensure the preservation of the environment for future residents. For those of us that remember the epic garden build of Acropolis it’s loss to the grid is still something residents lament.
Before Second Life adopts a culture of “here today and gone tomorrow” perhaps the community should be looking at how we can keep rich content alive in perpetuity.
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Dousa Dragonash
Skylar, thank you so very much for your lovely feature on our SIMs!
I’m Alchemy Cyannis, one of the two SIM owners for this region. My partner, Immortalis Cyannis, is the real genius behind the character of these lovely spaces. (Because I know we confuse the heck out of people with it, I’ll mention that AlchemyImmortalis Cyannis is our shared SIM-management account).
The Alchemy Immortalis SIM was our first, opened a year ago last March when we launched our business “Alchemy Immortalis”, embracing a theme of personal magic with a medieval flair. We opened “Empress and Hierophant” up as a public parkland shortly afterwards, patterned after Wicklowe Mountains National Park (spreading through County Wicklow in the East of Ireland), with inspiration also drawn from Cornwall, England and a few other celtic haunts. “Inis Caiseal” (meaning “Castle Island” and pronounced “Inish Cashal” — can’t you just hear Sean Connery saying that? lol) is our most recent addition, continuing on with the Irish countryside theme, and will be home to the Bed & Breakfast experience that we will be opening.
We’ve had a lot of fun cultivating a space that invites people to slow down and explore on horseback, bicycle, on foot hiking through the heathered hills, or in one of the rowboats that you’ll find waiting at the quays to carry you through the channels that traverse the sims. If people touch any of the upright standing stones dotted about the sims, a set of poseballs will appear at their feet, allowing them to steal a cuddle, a dance, sneak a kiss, or even pop the question ; ) We’ve tried to make sure that there are lots of unique, personal vistas where people can curl up with a good friend or sit quietly with their thoughts, enjoying the traditional Irish folk songs playing throughout the sims.
Thank you, Skylar, for sharing our spaces in a way that will allow us to welcome new visitors. We’re always so happy when people connect with the things that we’ve created : )
Kindest thanks,
Alchemy Cyannis.
April 3, 2010 | 10:13 am