Stuff of legends

It was a beautiful SL morning, the day after a good deal of foolishness:

• Tiny Empires on April Fool’s Day
• The First Tiny Empires 3000 Standings Page

And I was privileged to view something seen only a handful of times in SL history — the return of the village in Caledon Brigadoon.

There is a small glade on that sim, populated by badgers and deer and the occasional rather large and nasty snake. (Can you say “scripted hissy fit?”) Wild mushrooms grow.

But about once every couple of months, for an hour or two, the mists rise and a quiet village appears. I had heard tales of this since the creation of Caledon Brigadoon. This time, thanks to an alert from Mr. Jameson Despres, I was able to wander the streets for myself.

I received the call a bit after 4 am on the 2nd, and traveled to the new Museum of Caledon History site about 4:45 am. After a short walk up the hill to the west, I beheld a handful of buildings, streets, even a bridge that simply were Not There before. And shortly after my return to the museum, perhaps by 5:30 am, they were gone again.

I had hoped to share the experience in more detail, but I find that my pictures simply did not capture the sights. In my experience as chief archivist of the Caledon Research Institute, I have come upon this phenomenon before. Records have a way of vanishing, and only the legends remain. Yet now I have seen, and if all I have is my story and my memories, so be it.

Partial new puzzle solution

The Emperor unleashed a new series of Tiny Empires puzzles a couple of days ago, and they have been giving us fits. The puzzles give a sequence of five numbers, and ask you what number comes next in the sequence.

A host of players across kingdom lines have been pooling data trying to work through a solution. Part of the fun is that there is more than one solution — the Emperor appears to be using at least four different series to set his puzzles.

New Deseretians Austin Shepherd, Talia Rosher, and Sariah Plutonian have been at the cutting edge of this work, and the notes I publish below come from them and many others.

Series 1: Number of letters in the names of the months: 7 8 5 5 3 4 4 6 9 7 8 8
Series 2: Number of letters in the names of the numbers 1-10: 3 3 5 4 4 3 5 5 4 3
Series 3: Appears to be a simple repeating pattern: 3 4 5 5 4 3 3 4 5 5 4 3
Series 4: So far this series is still a mystery; I’ll go find the current construction of the list.

Well done, Terra Aurea!

Never mind . . .

Apprently there was no change after all; the Emperor IMed me with a note that the change was actually temporary (no edict involved), and upon visiting the standings page I saw that the map has been reformatted with all 112 major kingdoms again in place. Sorry for the false alarm.

Huzzah to Sweet Spirit Candi Streusel and Tiger Princess Talia Rosher!

The Emperor giveth . . .

. . . and the Emperor taketh away.

By Imperial edict of 15 March 2009, only the top 100 kingdoms will now appear on the map of Terra Aurea. The rest of us are now minor kingdoms again — although the powers of the monarch were not changed. I can still grant titles and do all the other fun stuff.

I will concede that I was as mad as I have ever been over a game for about 45 minutes after finding out. I blew off some steam in the Monarchs group, and they talked sense to me. After all, “It’s a game, not a lifestyle.”

You worked as hard as anyone could ask for from the 14th of December to the 7th of March to get back on the map, and you did it. No one can ever take that achievement away.

It’s up to you how hard we want to push to get back now.

TE 3000 and Hagoth Exploration

On Tuesday, March 10, Ultralite Soleil, the creator of Tiny Empires, released his new HUD-based game Tiny Empires 3000. (This is what all those dream messages were about over the weekend.)

Think TE in space and you’re mostly there. There appear to be just enough differences to make it interesting, and some new wrinkles to work through. Trial HUDs let you go up to 20 ships and Merchant rank; full HUDs cost L$999.

The question for established TE kingdoms is what to do about it. My opinion is still evolving. There is a place for both games. In fact, both HUDs run nicely in my window (although some will have issues with screen real estate.) However, I don’t want anything to diminish what we have built as a kingdom.

As Queen of New Deseret, I am commissioning Hagoth Exploration to carry our flag into space. Worlds and lives abound, after all. I have ten full HUDs besides my own. I will give them to ten volunteers who are active in the kingdom, willing to run both games, and willing to serve with me as immediate superior. You can pay me what you like up to the 999 price tag.

I doubt that Hagoth Exploration will ever be a TE3K guild. But New Deseret was a principality group long before it ever became a kingdom; I am not a fortune teller. (If I were we would have more keys to hand out.)

Our TE3K subgroup will use the existing New Deseret in Tiny Empires group when notices and such are needed; I don’t want anyone to need a new group. My immediate superior is Alamiga Anatine, and those who wish to join her Angels of the Universe group are encouraged to do so. (She is also Queen of Angels of the Empire in TE, another kingdom that pulled itself onto the map from the ranks of the minor kingdoms.)

I will not be asking others in the kingdom to play TE3K. I expect that if people say No their wishes will be respected. Any hint of cross-game dealing or untoward pressure on existing kingdom lines will incur my displeasure. None of this is intended to be negative; I just want to clarify up front that the existing kingdom is more important to me than any new game.

If you want to build your fleet of ships and carry our flag, let me know.

Val

Check out the new standings page look!

The TE standings page just got a facelift late yesterday.

The sad part: The “family tree” look is gone.

The happy parts: Faster loads. More readable print. More information, with icons for joust champions, trader books read, research completed, viceroy status. Your granted title shows up now while still showing your true rank via an icon.

Go peek. It looks good.

Two new princesses in one day; Queen Valentine’s interview

Not only did Di Lowenhart become a princess on Christmas Day, but so did Clowey Greenwood. Huzzah!

Also, Val was interviewed by Vulpine Eldrich for her Tiny Empires blog as part of a continuing series of interviews with TE monarchs. One sidelight was that both interviewer and interviewee met with the mysterious trader during the interview. The interview was published on 28 December.