Archive for October, 2010

Black Moon Prophecy

Sunday, October 31st, 2010

ZOMBIE INVASION

Sunday 31 October (Today)3:10pm SL time.
Don’t worry about finding them they will find you :).

We hope all players will join in this one off fun event for Halloween.
You may even earn yourself some extra cash, if your nerves hold out.
Even though it is a fun event we have still tried to fit it around the general story of the game so you do not need to go OOC to play.
Please read the short intro story at the end of this note if you have not already done so.

ZOMBIE INSTRUCTIONS:

Player notes

-= PHYSICAL HEALTH/WEAPONS =-

A zombie has a lifespan of max 5 minutes, if it doesn’t get killed first.
Every time it collides with players, it will drop 2 points of physical health.
Players may use either SGS melee or range weapons to fight back.
The amount of damage is a random number based on the weapon damage
there will be extra food to be found in the church.

-= AWARD =-

Players that kill zombies will be awarded 100G$ for each kill , deposited directly into their bank account
(-10% of bank commissions).

-= ZOMBIE’s LOGIC =-

The zombies chase and attack one person at a time.
If you attack the zombie, it will stop chasing its current target and come after you.
If you run and hide in a crowd, it will likely lose interest in you and start to chase someone else.
If you go to KoS2, you have better chances not to be chased by zombies, but they do cross-over sims (I think, but yet to be tested.).

-= FOOD =-

If you go to zombie hunt, you need plenty of food/bandage/armor.
It is better food on the go. If you stop at one of the restaurant and wait for your food, you may be dead before having a chance to have your meal.

-= INFECTION / VACCINE =-

Zombies will infect you, if you don’t kill them first.
In general vaccines last for the whole month.
Because it is the end of the month it is possible that you will need a new vaccine,if you were previously vaccinated against that virus.

INTRO STORYLINE

The Black Moon Prophesy

There was much commotion in the streets one day as I took my usual walk upon the city walls.
I stopped and looked down upon a small crowd which had gathered around a very old man who was sitting propped against a wall.
He was shouting something in a very old dialect which I had not heard for many years.
“Beware!” he cried “Beware the Black Moon when the day shall turn to night and all that is Evil and corrupt shall rise up from the tombs and rage against the light”
Some people seemed amused and some seemed rather angry and shouted back at the man to move on and take his prophesies elsewhere. But he did not move, just carried on shouting.
I decided to walked down the steps to the street bellow to get a closer look at him.
Once at the bottom I could see much better his face. His eyes were closed, his skin dark tanned, and there was something very awesome in his expression. Like a man who had seen something so frightful that the look of fear formed in the seeing had been frozen for all time in a terrible expression of fear.
As the crowd finally dispersed a bit and the old man at last fell silent I walked closer and stood above him.
All of a sudden he raised his head and opened his eyes and gazed up at me. But there were no eyes in the sockets.
He grasped at my cloak and pulled it towards him I resisted, but he whispered “closer, come closer” I leaned down to hear better his whispered words. It was an old saying I remembered from when I was very young, my grandmother used to say it, but my father would stop her and tell her to be mindful of those who were listening.
This he whispered.

“What shall we do when the Moon turns black
And the day becomes as night
When all that is evil walks the streets
And the good must hide in fright.

Oh where shall we run when the light is gone,
We with no strength to fight.
In who shall we trust when the evil comes
Who will stand for the light.

Weep for the fallen killed and maimed
Slain on the blood soaked bed
Weep for those taken, pray for their souls
Pray they will soon be dead.

When will this happen, when will it be
Per chance it’s a nightmare dream
Oh how I wish it were only such
Not the fate that befalls Ireem.

Zombie Invasion

Sunday, October 31st, 2010

ZOMBIE INVASION

Sunday 31 October (Today)10am SL time
Don’t worry about finding them they will find you :).

We hope all players will join in this one off fun event for Halloween.
You may even earn yourself some extra cash, if your nerves hold out.
Even though it is a fun event we have still tried to fit it around the general story of the game so you do not need to go OOC to play.
Please read the short intro story at the end of this note if you have not already done so.

ZOMBIE INSTRUCTIONS:

-= PHYSICAL HEALTH/WEAPONS =-

A zombie has a lifespan of max 5 minutes, if it doesn’t get killed first.
Every time it collides with players, it will drop 2 points of physical health.
Players may use either melee or range weapons to fight back.
The amount of damage is a random number based on the weapon damage

-= AWARD =-

Players that kill zombies will be awarded 100G$ for each kill , deposited directly into their bank account
(-10% of bank commissions).

-= ZOMBIE’s LOGIC =-

The zombies chase and attack one person at a time.
If you attack the zombie, it will stop chasing its current target and come after you.
If you run and hide in a crowd, it will likely lose interest in you and start to chase someone else.
If you go to Nomos2, you have better chances not to be chased by zombies, but they do cross-over sims (I think, but yet to be tested.).

-= FOOD =-

If you go to zombie hunt, you need plenty of food/bandage/armor.
It is better food on the go. If you stop at one of the restaurant and wait for your food, you may be dead before having a chance to have your meal.

-= INFECTION / VACCINE =-

Zombies will infect you, if you don’t kill them first.
In general vaccines last for the whole month.
Because it is the end of the month it is possible that you will need a new vaccine,if you were previously vaccinated against that virus.

Genotek Exclusive- An Experiment Gone Pear Shaped

INTRO STORYLINE

Investigations are underway into the mysterious slaying of four Genotek scientists last night. Autopsies released this morning uncovered all four had clean removal of their brains. A fifth scientists who survived the ordeal remains under heavy security at Bedlam facilities. Metropol detectives remain tight lipped on the situation refusing to make any comments on the events that led to the brutal murders.
“Listen lady, if you ever get a clearance through MetroTek in your lifetime then we’d only be obliged to hand you over a media statement…. but you don’t, so sod off.”
Charming as always….
Luck however seems to be on the side of Street Life when we recieved a phone call from the surviving scientist himself. the following transcript is a recording of the conversation;

StreetLife: Hello Street Life, you tell us we tell the world…
Scientist: Please i dont have much time. I am Dr [inaudible crackle] of Genotek. I must ensure Nomos is warned. the experiment, it went bad. Very very bad.
St: Oh boy are we glad to hear from you, we have a ton of questions
Sc: No. No time for questions. I will tell you straight. The miners. We’ve kept miners from sight. Years of experimentation have just gone down the drain with this final experiment.
St: Miners? Experiments? What have you done?
Sc: We were studying a strain of virus and its effects. It got too strong. We created an immunisation… but something went wrong. They got strong but they were getting hungry. They get hungrier and hungrier the more they feed. We managed to contain them for a while, but they broke free and killed everybody.
St: Not quite. You managed to survive.
Sc: Yes, i ran and fought off what i could. Metropol responded to the alarm and managed to fend them off into a vault. It wont hold them. The vaults only work on timers. We normally only use them to keep the replicants cool. After a certain amount of time the doors automatically open for an hour to let some air out. There is no way to reprogram it by the time the doors are set to reopen they will be hungry and devour anything that attempts to reshut that door.
St: Let me get this straight. You experimented on some missing miners and now, from what one can only assume through the state of your four dead scientists, they’ve become flesh hungry creatures with a taste for everybody. They’re locked in a useless vault that wont hold them and anyone walking the streets of Nomos is potentially doomed if they come across one. Wow you guys have alot to answer to for this screw up
Sc: Yes yes and i have four scientists that are very sorry. Please warn Nomos. The residents need to be armed and prepared. They need to be stockpiled on medical supplies and food.
St: When are the vault doors set to reopen?
Sc: I am calculating this Sunday morning at an estimated time of 10am.
St: How many of these things are we looking at?
Sc: the number is too great to…. [a voice is heard in the background “What do you think you’re doing doc?”] ….i need to go.

The phone goes dead.

Posted by Skarlet Winterwolf at 4:45 PM

Have Fun!

KOS Business Auction

Saturday, October 30th, 2010

The following business are now up for auction:
– Alchemist
– Mystic
– Arena
Please have a genuine interest in roleplaying the role.
No ALTs. No Bids if your only interest is accumulating money.
Thank you.
The auction close  24 hours after the highest bids.
We reserve the right to void the auction if the criteria is not met. Thank you.

Cat’O Nine Tails

Saturday, October 30th, 2010

This whip is *special*. It is not for combat, and it is for punishment. What happens with this whip is that works on captives (who are usually unable to receive damage) and in safezones too. It has very low damage. However, like all other weapons, it should be used accompanied by proper roleplay . DO NOT USE to go to safezones and annoy other people. If you use it properly in safezone, everybody tagged as ‘safezone’ is also allowed to draw their weapon (full damage) and use it on you.

SGS Upgrade 0.82

Friday, October 29th, 2010

There was a small bug in the Unconscious state, that is fixed now. It also  now lasts 5 minutes instead of 10.
Small update, but you will need it if you play at the  zombie event on Sunday.
Upgrades are available for free at the game room at the entrance of the SIM. There is a sign on the wall for HUD Upgrades.

SGS Upgrade 0.81

Sunday, October 17th, 2010

If you get into a dispute and you cannot find a way out, you can ask the other player to roll a dice. Highest roll will win.
To do that, use the “Interact”  Menu in the HUD. If the other player agrees, the result will show up in local chat. Dice is not mandatory, but if you both agree to it, please play along with whatever output will be.
To use Dice, please get free upgrade  to version 0.81 from the  Upgrade Vendor at the entrance of the SIM.

About Lag – By Kora

Saturday, October 16th, 2010

SGS SIMS – LAG LIMITS
Last Updated: 16 October 2010
Second Draft
——————————————

Different people will tell you different stories about lag and what is causing it.
Instead of boring you with the technicalities, it is easier if I set some limits.
Below that limits, you can be sure that you are not causing lag.

GOOD if:
– SCRIPT TIME is 0.350ms or below
– SCRIPT COUNT is 30 or below
– MEMORY ALLOCATION: TBD
– AVATAR RENDERING COST: 2000 or below

If it is higher, read the rest of the notecard 🙂

If you are found to wear laggy attachments, there is nothing to be ashamed or upset about.
You just have to contact the creator of the object and ask for a low-lag replacement of it.
Linden Lab is introducing limits on scripts both on region and on individual avatars, so becoming aware of your lag numbers (either low or high) is a necessity.

You will find articles out there saying that scripts don’t cause lag. Whoever thinks that is *delusional*. Sorry 🙂
Passive scripts are not to blame though (I am in favor of passive scripts).
Linden Labs changed the way the servers handle the scripts, and that is fine, but what happens nowadays is that if the server is overload by too many active scripts, it simply queue them , so instead of crashing the sim, your script will fail or timeout because  the server is busy running other things.

Server resources are limited and shared. So while you can run hundreds bad scripts in an empty sim without causing lag, you will almost halt the execution of any script if you move to a busy region. It is just a matter to be reasonable.

And to be honest, the responsability falls on scripters, ultimately (me included).

The numbers below are divided between GREEN, YELLOW,  ORANGE, and RED

If you are GREEN – it is VERY GOOD. You are very low lag and no need to worry any further
If you are YELLOW – it is NOT SO GOOD, and no matter what, you should at least find the source of the lag in what you wear
If you are ORANGE – it is BAD. You have to investigate, but if the traffic of the SIM is below 20 avatars, it is probably not a major concern.
If you are RED – it is VERY BAD. You definitely need to remove those attachments and/or ask me for help if you cannot identify them.

Again, no matter what, I will help you.

>>>> SCRIPT TIME  <<<<<<<
———————————————————
Only SIM managers can find out the script time. But this measure is *VERY* important.
If you receive a lag warning message from me, then please check on your scripted attachments.
Scripts do not cause lag. Bad scripts do.

Scripts with active listeners and timers and bad code in general cause enourmous strain on the server.
Resizeable or colorable high-prims attachments are generally the worst offenders, such as scripted hair or scripted belts and boots.
There are new functions in LSL to resize items with 1 script instead of 200 of them, so if you have one of these items, please contact the creator and ask for a low-lag replacement or a way to remove the scripts from your items.
Some hair designers added a menu to delete the resizer script once you fit on your avatar. Just create a copy of the hair before removing the scripts.

If the time dilation of a SIM is below 0.90, it is definitely caused by scripts.

(At the time being time dilation drops quickly when someone wearing Mono scripts enter the SIM, so quick and temporary drops of time dilation are not a concern, because there is nothing we can do about it).

The laggiest items in a SIM are AVATARS wearing scripted attachments, without any doubt.

Below 0.350ms: GREEN
0.350 – 0.550ms: YELLOW
0.550 – 0.800ms: ORANGE
Above 0.800: RED

If you are above ORANGE/RED, you definitely wear some badly scripted attachments.

What is the script time of attachments?
– Passive scripts are usually 0.002-0.010ms (all good)
– An average AO is about 0.070ms
– The SGS stuff  (HUD+Meter+Weapons) is about 0.080ms
– Some collars are 0.200ms (BAD!)
– Scripted Hair is often 0.600ms(BAD!)
– Some HUDs are 0.400ms (BAD!)
– Some scripted high-prim jewelry is 0.400ms (BAD!)
– Radars are often 0.400ms (BAD!)

Ask me if you want to check on your script time, and I will let you know.

>>>>>> SCRIPT COUNT (Phoenix only) <<<<<<
———————————————————————
If you have Phoenix (or maybe some other viewer), you can find out how many scripts an avatar wears (it doesn’t count scripted items worn as HUD, but only worn as body attachments).

Below 30: GREEN
30 – 40: YELLOW
40 – 60: ORANGE
Above 60: RED

The SGS Meter has 4 scripts,  a SGS weapons (both items) is about 4 scripts max.
A large number of scripts is likely to cause ‘overload’ on the server, so keep it low.

If you have Phoenix, click on your ‘body’ and select ‘S. Count’ from the menu. It will show the number of scripts your avatar wear, or the number of scripts for that specific attachment, if you click on one of it.

If you don’t have Phoenix, ask a friend to find out the number for you.

>>>>> MEMORY ALLOCATION (Viewer 2.0) <<<<<<<<
————————————————————
I will explain this another time. For the time being it is not so accurate and not so meaningful, since scripters cannot allocate memory limits to Mono scripts.

>>>> AVATAR RENDERING COST (ARC) <<<<
———————————————————————-
Detailed information in here:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Avatar_Rendering_Cost

A high ARC affects the lag on the client side, so your viewer and everybody else around you.
When you have hard time to move or to rezz, even when time dilation is fine, it is likely lag on the client side.

To see everybody’s ARC, go in Advanced Menu (CTRL+ALT+D, if you don’t see it)
Enable Advanced > Rendering > Info Displays > Avatar Rendering Cost.

Below 2000: GREEN
2000 – 3000: YELLOW
3000 – 4000: ORANGE
Above 4000: RED

If your attachments are high-prim or use high-resolution textures, they are likely to be the cause of high ARC.
If not, read the wiki link above.

ARC doesn’t really compute anything precisely, but it is more an arbitrary number based on many variables.
If you keep it low, you cannot be wrong.

MORE INFO ABOUT LAG:
——————————-
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Lag

I  also support the decision of Linden Lab of setting some script limit.
If we scripters have to make an extra effort to tune the scripts to make them light on the servers, so be it 🙂

Again, if you are found to cause lag, do not take it personal.

Kora Zenovka

Crime Reports

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

Crime Reports are to be used for proper in-character crimes.
Please  DO NOT use it to report OOC crimes and DO NOT make up false accusations just to annoy someone you don’t get along with.
Abuse of it will be penalized with 100,000G$ or life sentences in jail  ;-P
Thank you for understanding. 🙂

TOS – Community Standards & Online Harassment

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Sometimes we receive complaints about alleged violation of  TOS. Some of you may not be familiar with it, so please read it carefully:
http://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php
These are Second Life rules. We abide by these rules,  but if you witness violation of these rules – you should submit Abuse Reports to Linden Labs, so they can investigate. and take proper actions based on their findings.

Another important reading is about online harassment.
If you are victim of harassment, please read this:
http://secondlife.com/policy/security/harassment.php

Stealing from Tills

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

The code has been updated. Now business owners can add specific players to a ban list. Those players won’t be able to steal from those tills.
Stealing from tills is part of the game, but it is not meant for a quick  robbery and then teleport out if you get caught 🙂
Also you won’t be able to steal while waiting for your court trial.
Committing crime is an opportunity to have more interaction with other players.
ps: If you find bugs in the code, IM Kora. Thanks.

Polite and Respecful: Reminder

Saturday, October 2nd, 2010

Reminder: One of the main rules of the SIM is to use a polite and respectful language in OOC/IMs. Keeping in mind that using OOC offensive language is not only against the SIM rules, but against the TOS of Second Life.
If you get mad at someone, DO NOT ENGAGE IN AN OOC OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE. If you cannot control your temper  OOC, please teleport out of the SIM or go to the Drama Box to take some time to cool off.
Thank you.

KoS Main Gate area

Friday, October 1st, 2010

The Main gate of the City in Kos is an extremely important place. It is, we understand, a great place to congregate, but it is also the first place visitors and new players see. Therefore, what happens there sets the tone of the whole Sim and Game. Like the saying goes, first impressions are lasting impressions.

We would therefore like to ask that those who congregate there please cut out all OOC chat unless extremely necessary to RP, no IC bad language, no none RP related gestures and animations, no playing of sound bytes of any kind. No formation dancing, no parties.

Basically this is a totally IC (in-character) zone, as the whole sim should be, but the gate is essential. There are many much more private places around the sim to carry on these other activities if you must, please keep the main gate area free of all none game related things.

Thank you.