The Relay For Life Walk in InWorldz

Earlier this year in July, Second Life held it's Relay for Life Walk, the high point of it's RFL fundraising season. Shortly after the Relay in Second Life came to a close for the year, it began on the InWorldz grid. After a few months of various events, came it's own Relay for Life Walk on Saturday November 1.

The event lasted for about 12 hours, from 9AM to 9PM (SL and IW time), and took place across four sims, Tiny Steps For A Cure, Muse Island, InBiz, and Bllavio's Furniture. "Having Muse Island been a godsend to be able to host ... events without occuring sim cost." I was told. This was one more sim in area, than last year. There were a number of Relayers from Second Life there, such as Oldesoul Eldemar, Madonna Daehlie, Wildstar Beaumont, and Bain Finch.

Unlike the track around a carnival build last year, this Walk resembled it's Second Life counterpart more, though was a little different.  The track going around the various exhibits, or camps, was raised a bit off the ground, accessible through ramps or by flying/jumping on it.

Bain Finch took me to the places where two previous major RFL in IW took place, the Fashion For Life and Job Fair. Taking me to the Fashion For Life space station, Bain told me it had been built by Logan Willow and took over a month, "He's been a sponsor of Relay from day one. ... We were trying to get some of the larger InWorldz groups take part. We had the two biggest agencies come together for the show and the Tinies also had a fashion day to help showcase their unique fashion. ... We had 3 fashion days, One for the host agency InStylez, one for New York Modelling Agency and the Tiny got together with the Dinkies for a show."

The Job Fair was in a simpler build, in a skybox high above Muse Island, Bain saying, "This was a dual event with the fair and Art Auction." Of the Job Fair, "It's a way to help promote IWz groups, businesses, land owners,etc. and help bring new people into RFL and RFL to their efforts to reach new members."

"Between the art auction headed by Ferrator Montoya, the job fair by Jillian2000 Quintessa and the Fashion For Life by Raven Dulce they raise 1/4 of our fundraising. Sadly the Fashion For life was Raven's last show as real-life forced her to close InStylez down. Llike always real-life comes first, and that been a rule within RFL too."

Getting back down to the ground, Bain then took me to the Dr. Klatt Memorial. Dr Klatt was the man credited with starting the Relay for Life, "When we heard the news of his passing we decided to do something special. It was unveiled at the start of the Luminaria ceremony. ...  And thanks again to Ferrator Montoya and Cassie Eldemar and few others they made that from a rough concept Panza and I came up with. Te Memorial Gardens will also be renamed the Dr Klatt's Memorial Gardens."

"The other big story is Lady Cha," Bain went on, "At the end of last years Relay she found Relay and created this sim in something silly like two days. We came over and our jaws dropped. (Her) goal is to turn this sim into SL ACS Island for survivors and caregivers."

Bain did have some bad news, "but sadly, she been fighting her third turn by cancer's icy finger. We are all praying hard for her and she's on heck of a fighter. I don't think she knows how to give up. I hope some day soon, you can interview her. She's a lovely soul."

As it turned out, there was some debate about how long to make the Walk event, "I didn't know until IWz there 3 different plans, the normal 24 hours one, a 12 and an 18 hour one." They had decided on twelve hours due to the size of the track, "Sting had suggest only a 6 hour one, but we decided other wise from the get go."

Bain soon had to go, but I continued looking around for a bit. Looking at the leaves of one tree, I found that they were actually the images of human faces.

Night soon fell, my viewer remaining in region default mode, as I walked around the track.

 The largest build was a castle, standing about seventy meters off the ground, or about ninety above sea level.

After The Walk came to a close came some news. The total number of InWorldz dollars or "Izzies" came to a total of 2 million raised. This is more than twice the amount raised by this time last season.

While the event was smaller than Second Life's Relay Walk, it demonstrated the enthusiasm of it's participants, and showed despite that the Linden Lab Terms of Service controversy that boosted it's numbers in the past is over, InWorldz continues grow and demonstrate great builds, and events, can be done there as well.

Wildstar Beaumont took a number of pictures, which he posted on his Flickr:

RFL IW Track, RFL 2014 The Relay .

Bixyl Shuftan

The Odd Ball's First Event in Inworldz

By Bixyl Shuftan

On Sunday Sept 29, Tuna Oddfellow and Shava Suntzu launched their first performance of the Odd Ball in the virtual world of InWorldz. The event took place just after Noon SL time and InWorlds time. Jana Kyomoon performed live music for the crowd.

In the moments before the show started, Tuna and Shava's club looked much like it had when I was there a few days earlier, save for the piano where Jana was playing, and the huge magician's hat that's been the center of every Odd Ball I remember. A number of people showed up, sometimes one just after the other, "hope you don't mind me landing on your head." Some had longtime experience with InWorldz, others had shown up for only their first time today.

Then Tuna announced the start, "Welcome everyone to the first ever Odd Ball in InWorldz." And then things began to take shape. First the club vanished and the floor turned psychedelic shades. Then all around us, the sky turned kaleidoscope colors. The Odd Ball was back, and it was just as trippy as before, "it's a carnival ride for the mind." "Sure am glad I not did drugs in college. I wouldn't know what is show and what isn't."

Shava tried to explain the way the special effects worked, "The theory is that your brain's wiring for estimating space is being tricked into reframing the frame of reference, as though you were on a carnival ride, or as though you had entered a vaulted space like a cathedral or domed space in a big building, or were looking off a mountain top. There's a moment of a feeling of pure awe that our brains give us when we can't compute a space like that, left over from the reward our brains give us in childhood when it's so important that we master spatial relationships in play. That's our theory."

A few people had a little trouble with the sound, but not usually for long. And it took a while for some to get dancing with the animations in a whole new Grid. And the psychedelic colors had an effect on some people, "Oh my God, I'm getting dizzy." "Wow, couldn't find my mouse pointer for a sec." "Ohh this iss grreeaat." "Hey, try moving around in this." But everyone had a great time there. "If you know me in SL," Tuna told the audience, "please friend me here. If you know me here, please friend me here.- it's really that simple."

Tuna was happy that he was able to have the Odd Ball so soon after closing it in Second Life, "It took me years to deveiop our show. I am amazed we recreated it in days." "I'm surprised you got it up and running this fast too," another responded. Shava told, "We got it all working, you have no idea how hard Tuna was working on this this week! And Quadrapop has been so helpful and so many folks here too!"

People discussed what they had done here, "I think after 4 years I've got more stuff here (smile), certainly got a better avi." "Well, I could have never built Replicant City on SL. So that is a tremendously good trade-off." "With the exception of the shoes and hair, everything I'm in is either self made or uploaded from samples online I found." "First thing I did when I got here, made an RLV collar. (grin)"

People also discussed what others were doing in Inworldz, "Have you seen Wizard Gynoid's experiments with linkage geometry here? 80,000+ linked prims ROTATING!" "Here we can actually have single-object mega starships. Not to mention single-object ocean sailing ships."

Eventually, the hour was up, and the show was over. The triply effects soon faded, and the club was back, "Well folks, we've come to the end of another Sunday Odd Ball! We'll be back tomorrow at 6pm with more tripped out brain candy." "Thank you for the music that was awesome." "YEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH TUNA!" "Really do appreciate your support," Jana told the crowd, "and again a BIG congrats to Tuna." "Great time everyone and WELCOME TO INWORLDZ TUNA & SHAVA!" "Kewl show & really nice people doing it."

Shava commented, "So many people we know were already here -- both worlds or you know, we've been dual citizens three years. But a lot of folks came over first time from SL just for today and probably more for tomorrow's show. We do two shows every month with Jana this time of month, and we didn't miss them just because of this." There would be another show scheduled for Monday at 6PM Pacific/SL/InWorldz time. "This is only the beginning," Tuna told the crowd.

Before the crowd dispersed, Quadrapop handed me something: a "Wingless" anthro Fox avatar. I could look foxy again! I had to change the color of the hair, but there was no arguing with the price. Finally a foxy look.

As it turned out, there was an event in Inworldz just after the Odd Ball. Bain Finch and Panza Elde from the Relay for Life were there at a dance party, and invited me over. And earlier, there had been another. "Bixyl, you missed the fun this morning," Panza told me, "Sailing event. I ended up on the rocks." "Ya, you missed Panza's driving," Bain mused. The dance party had a number of Tinies there, some from Raglan Shire, which has a presence in Inworldz. I was also told that in the past week. a large number of residents from Second Life  had come over, notably content creators.

There was other thing I noticed. Lag was less in Inworldz than in Second Life. At least this was my experience with an older computer. I also didn't crash any. A few residents from the Odd Ball did seem to have some problems, though. SO the switch wasn't an improvement this way for all.

"Thanks for being our Tunaverse – can't have a consensual hallucination without the consenting!"

Bixyl Shuftan