This land is your land

News

For those of you who attended this summer's Land Expo (and everyone else too), I'm sure you've heard all about how easy it is to buy, sell, and rent land to your fellow Residents.

That's not what this blog post is about.

What I discovered while reading through the Land Expo attendees' comments was that many of you are interested in learning about what you can do with the land you have or community land you're working with already. From terraforming tips to free landscaping elements, attendees said they wanted to know what cool stuff is out there and what expert terraformers are doing to beautify their land.

So, I decided to ask the experts in the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) for some tips for finding good stuff. For those of you who didn't even know about this group, they're all about improving the Mainland experience. the LDPW Lindens and the Moles (Residents working under contract on land development projects) create land and terraform it for public and Linden use.

What are these "public works" for? The roads, waterways, parks, unique builds, and natural spaces are for a variety of purposes: beauty, separating parcels (some Residents may not want to see the giant robots next door to their Alice in Wonderland build, for example), recreation, events, new-user orientation, sandboxes, and more.

Because they build everything themselves and don't use Resident stuff, the LDPW crew couldn't really give me a lot of advice on public resources for buying landscaping items, but they did tell me about the free stuff they've been giving out for Residents' builds.

That's right. Free stuff. If you like the themed elements of their builds, many of them are available for you to use in your own building projects. Here's where to find some of their goodies:

Bay City: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Inner%20Harbor/9/29/26
Nautilus: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Nautilus%20-%20Shalim/226/111/25
Blake Sea (look for the slop chest): http://slurl.com/secondlife/Blake%20Sea%20-%20Half%20Hitch/118/133/22

If you're thinking about creating your own themed build for your community's use, the LDPW gang advises that assigning one person or a tight team to the project makes for a better end result. Of course, if your project is community-based, you'll want to identify a goal or theme that will allow for some variety (and slack). Plus, you'll want to have a plan for maintenance after the build is complete, as a community of builders may not hang around the finished parcel very much. For other LDPW tips, you can check out their blog.

There are a lot of other resources out there that your fellow Residents can probably tell you about--LDPW is just part of the building community within Second Life. It's the collective, collaborative work of everyone inworld that makes Second Life so interesting.

So, what cool landscaping, terraforming, or community-building projects have inspired you lately? What plans do you have--whether they're grand or modest--for your piece of the world? Do you know any other spots or free resources for your fellow land-loving Residents? Inquiring community builders want to know.