pixels and pronouns

Because nothing gets a man harder, than foam sole sandals. Get it girl.

Nope...NOPE. First off hello? Copyright? Second, I always knew She-ra was into anal.

So it's saturday! And we thought it might be fun to bring you a bit of a location and review mash up of a sim we're currently playing on. The sim is called Crack Den, and the city is called Hathian. Once you've arrived, gotten your guest tag or apped you'll land smack dab in the middle of urbanized hell.

So far we've been playing there for about a month, and my feelings right now are about 50/50 towards the sim.

The positives:
-The world is beautiful, they did a fantastic job of really building up the city around you to feel like any home town at its absolute worst. Walking through the city you'll find a lot of really amazing detail, even down to like the tiniest nooks and crannies with oil drums stuffed in them, and areas for people to sit and play. Every prim has a use to make the city more colorful and it doesn't seem like they let any go to waste.

-The RP is as colorful as the landscape. You can sit and "listen" (read?) to people as they write and the stories are usually as lengthy as their posts. Everyone seems to do varying levels of paragraph rp, and they paint pretty amazing pictures as they do. If you get lucky enough to sit in on or around a good scene, it can be as good of a read as a novel. Well with a few punctuation and spelling errors mixed in (if it's me typing)

- The jobs, almost every open building has an available job for new members and old members alike, to help people get more into the story of the sim and get involved with other people. Jobs like radar record store clerk, lou's bar back, comique clerk, baker, just to name a few. You can also get the regular jobs you'll find on most sims like doctor, police offer and EMT. Basically you can find any position imaginable to add to the depth and color of your character, as well as background scenes for your stories, whether you are mugging a little old lady, or just wanting to get in a good eye fall at the titty bar, this sim has everything you'll need.

- The people, have been nice! While I do wish more often than not they would approach IC, I have received quite a few IMs in the past few days that are very welcoming and very friendly. The whole getting to know you process has been great and extremely welcoming. Im not sure what I expected going in, because other sims had seemed very closed off when it came to new people. While finding lengthy RP seems to still be a bit of an issue (see below) this is the silver lining!


The negatives:
-while the world is beautiful it can be kind of hard on the machine. I have a fairly decent card (gtx 670) that has no problem anywhere else in sl on ultra. But the moment I tp to CD it weeps, I think a large part of that is just the sheer amount of textures that need to be loaded. So I find myself turning my settings down to get an "okay" frame rate just to play. On top of that, and maybe it's only me, I'm finding this sim does something pretty terrible to firestorm resulting in memory leaks, graphic tears and "texture" loss when textures have hit their maximum with the viewer. So if you come here expect to either need a pretty grand machine to run at the highest settings, OR prepare to turn it down and watch for possible tears.

-The RP, as mentioned above the RP is fantastic! But It can be hard to get involved. I dont want to use the word clique, because I feel like thats an unfair judgement. I do feel like the sim is so old that many of its original players might be slightly wary to welcome in new, because I am fairly sure, often, new end up leaving. But thats kind of the story for most RP sims, and why many, unlike CD don't stick around long. RP sims, tend to become very exclusive clubs. Though I will say some of the RP I've found has been fantastic, and the people have been entirely more welcoming than most RP sims. But if you come here do expect to strong arm your way into scenes, or it just won't happen. Dont expect it to fall into your lap! You will have to put in more effort, for the pay out.

- The jobs, I feel like I'm just listing the downsides to the above points, but this is another big problem on sim. The jobs are just so diverse and grand, that, most of the shops, stores and clubs barely have the traffic to sustain them. While they work for small stories and character building, you wont find much by way of play, unless of course you bring in the business yourself (which in some cases you should!). If you are looking for a more busy job for your character I'd suggest some where like Geins, Lou's, The grind, or even possibly become an EMT/Police Officer because someone is always getting mugged. While it's our jobs to get people into our place of work, I think lack of traffic largely has to do with placement of many of the jobs. People tend to linger around the center of the sim, and less often do they wander to the outer edges. So old mainstays like TT's, and the surrounding buildings, and even further back  towards the diner tend to be empty or near empty on any given day. Also, management, seems to be MIA from most jobs, I checked the records for my own job and my manager has put in little to no time on sim in the past 10 days, while lou's has like 20 different note cards to peek at. But don't let this turn you off! Because luckily you don't NEED them to get hired, though it'd be nice to have some career rp here and there.

Every Tuesday we are going to try to bring you a new and interesting sim to explore! This one is called "Time Out!" I stumbled into recently and fell in love. Unlike a lot of scenic sims, it goes out of its way to have something for everyone, even to the point of coming off a bit indecisive on what exactly it WANTS to be. Is it a hang out spot to relax and take photos? Pub? Creepy zombie infested haunted forest? Or maybe a Maine style beach front complete with light house. The fact is, you just don't know what you are going to get when you take a new path or wind a corner. This sim is a real wild card that sets it apart from the rest.  I've made sure to add the SLURL to the bottom of this post, so be sure to take a peek!

Every Tuesday we are going to try to bring you a new and interesting sim to explore. This first one, Hesperia Templemore at Muzik Isle is a visually stunning venue for live performances, with a number of unique stages of various sizes tucked away throughout. The whole place has an intimate "Midsummer Night's Dream" effect, enhanced by the chosen regional windlight setting. It seems to blend together like an oil painting, instilling a sense of warmth and welcome. It's located here.




- Shep