Below is a short summary of the latest Community Meeting, followed by its chat logs – which have been gently edited for formatting, to put questions and answers in bold for easy skimming, and to omit greetings and farewells and other such asides. Meetings are hosted by Estate owner NeoBokrug Elytis at 2:00 pm on the first Saturday of every month at The Potato Farm in The Wastelands, and the discussion is typically divided into three main topics: Estate, Game, and Roleplay & Events. Everyone is welcome to attend!
ESTATE:
➳ Occupancy is down, as RL continues to punch people in the wallet.
➳ If finances are tight, Neo reminds people to not be worried about tiering down – more land will always be available later on.
➳ LL has changed how mesh objects’ land impact is calculated, and they should now cost about 15% less LI! This should generally free up a more LI on residents’ land.
➳ This 15% is a pretty significant amount for Homesteads – so Neo may be adding more new decor to them soon.
Land Ambiance
➳ Listen up – regions now have ambient sounds! But these are still in the works, so if you find them loud, annoying, inappropriate to the area, or otherwise concerning, please let Neo know so he can make adjustments.
➳ If the ambiance tweaks go well, he hopes to add day / night variants, and some to evoke weather conditions, as well, integrated with the RP weather system.
➳ The sound emitters could potentially even be particle emitters for visual weather effects.
➳ Physically-Based Rendering (PBR) land textures will be available soon, so the estate land textures may get an upgrade to have realistic-looking reflectivity, shading, and other properties.
➳ These textures would be available to landowners at The Heap, as well.
➳ Neo still hopes to create or commission a new custom day cycle for the Estate.
Upcoming Expos
➳ SL21B is coming up! If anyone would like to volunteer to build an exhibit for The Wastelands, let Neo know!
➳ The Wastelands may also be part of the next round of entrants in the Community Expo. If so, builders for that would be needed, as well.
Miscellaneous
➳ Neo’s hard drive crash in January nulled out all his progress on Burnt Oak stream updates, including loudness normalization and additional drive-in ads and random clips – but he’s begun to redo the work.
➳ He’s also hoping to automate things more for the projectionists, so that Neo isn’t needed to do the final encode, and so that high quality is maintained along with high speeds.
➳ Neo is still musing about how to restructure The Wastelands and The Junkyard in a minimally disruptive way.
➳ Northgate is still in progress, but has gone down the priority list.
GAME:
➳ Nests are once again spawning for the week after Easter.
➳ Scythejaw is also painting Revival Eggs again – including a new Tin Man egg!
➳ There’s also a change to how the random eggs work: each year, Scythejaw will offer the new egg, and also Neo’s own selection of a few eggs from previoous years. This should increase the chance of getting the newest design.
➳ Common crates once again had a surprise on April Fool’s Day. This behavior is hard-coded into them, so that if Neo doesn’t make a new April Fool’s prank, they’ll always have that one to fart fall back on.
➳ The Miasmata continue to behave well, but Neo has not yet tried the new method to make stuck ones flee to a nearby safe area instead of a random safe location.
➳ The weapon balance upgrades are still on the whiteboard, but will be a time-intensive endeavor. Ambiance tweaks were a very quick feature to add.
➳ Zombies may or may not invade Burnt Oak once more around the Red Revival…
➳ Aeg’s Potion Quest may return soon – and he still seeks new locations! If you’re a landowner and you’d like your location to be part of the task, see the relevant page of the Wiki for more details!
ROLEPLAY & EVENTS:
➳ The Red Revival approaches on Saturday, April 20! Any volunteers for ritual sacrifice, with the potential of becoming a Ghoul, are invited to contact Apo ASAP.
➳ The Red Parade will weave its discordant way around the Wastes (and maybe elsewhere) on Friday, April 19, starting at 6pm SLT.
➳ Ghouls in general seem to be re-emerging. Malice has been seen around,
➳ This month’s Caledon crossover events are not yet announced, but may include Gomi’s movies and a Caledonian’s DJ set.
➳ Reminder: The roleplay character template has been added to the Wiki – add yours today! Or review it to see who’s who and get some ideas for interactions.
Weekly Event Summary:
(All Times SLT)
Sundays:
– Storytime with Wasteland Drifter – 2pm
– Gomi’s Garbo Cinematic Expulsion – 5pm
First Sunday: [RP] Readings by the Oracle – Noon
Mondays:
– Mutant Drum Circle – 6pm
Tuesdays:
– Film Night with Wasteland Drifter – 5pm
Wednesdays:
– HOSTILE BROADCAST – 7pm
Thursdays:
– Unstructured Playtime w/ Dia – 5pm
– Booze & Blather [RP Event] – 6pm
Saturdays:
– Sandling’s Evening Madness – 1pm
– Apo’s Audio Atrocities – 5pm
First Saturday: Community Meeting – 2pm; Fight Night – 3pm
Second Saturday: Barrelhead Bazaar [RP Event] – 11am
Third Saturday: Wasted Raiders’ Raid – Noon
Occasional Saturdays at Neo’s Discretion: Saturday Morning Cartoons / Saturday Morning Sci-Fi – 8am, Enjoying Other People’s Suffering – 3pm.
Want to host an event? Let Neo know the event details by Wednesday night and he’ll add it to the weekly group announcements, Discord announcement, and Plurk feed!
If you want to keep in touch with other Wastelanders when you can
I. THE ESTATE
NeoBokrug Elytis: IT’S… TIME.
Sandling Honey: \ o /
NeoBokrug Elytis: Welcome to the Wastelands Community Meeting. As per the usual we’ll cover the three main aspects of the estate with time for questions and comments in between. Those aspects are Land & Estate, The Game, an RP & Events. The latter is typically an open floor discussion. :)
NeoBokrug Elytis: Starting with land and estate…
NeoBokrug Elytis: Occupancy is down, mostly due to folks and soem RL struggles, which I fully understand. If RL is being difficult at you please tier down. I’d rather you had some food on your plate than a virtual chunk of land. :)
NeoBokrug Elytis: There’ll always be some land available, it may not be the exact same spot, but sometimes it’s therapeutic to rebuild fresh.
NeoBokrug Elytis: Speaking of rebuilds; LL changed how mesh download costs were calculated. Most mesh items should cost 15% less LI — which means generally you should have more LI available on your lands!
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa) nods and thinks about that
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa): neat :)
NeoBokrug Elytis: And in the case of homestead infrastructure, that’s a pretty big chunk for me! So expect to see some new decor soon!
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Oooh!
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa) gasps!
Angharad Greggan: smiles
Verity Goodnight: wooo
NeoBokrug Elytis: I have been working on adding ambient sounds to each region. Malady Bog and Hambone Slough are getting the majority of the work. If things seem loud or annoying, please let me know. I am still dialing things in. The Junkyard and The Wastelands have some sound for now, but are not getting the tweaks until I figure out how to do it better.
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): im just waiting for random slugthroershots from nowhere
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Hah!
NeoBokrug Elytis: whispers: Related but not; I have been working on Caledon a lot. Its infrastructure is 18+ years old and has had very few updates. So I’ve made an asset account, and have been rebuying everything I’ve bought on Neo through the years.
NeoBokrug Elytis: Related but not; I have been working on Caledon a lot. Its infrastructure is 18+ years old and has had very few updates. So I’ve made an asset account, and have been rebuying everything I’ve bought on Neo through the years.
NeoBokrug Elytis: Cc: It is not impossible, but I wanted a general ambiance sound for the place before that.
NeoBokrug Elytis: The wind system in The Sand Seas was sort of a beta of that idea.
Aposiopesis Fullstop: I really dig those wind sounds.
NeoBokrug Elytis: So again, if the ambient sound system is annoying, please let me know. I need more feedback if it is, so I can make adjustments.
NeoBokrug Elytis: A few ideas I’ve had while working on it is to have a system that spawns the sound emitters, but based on the RP weather, so we can have rain sounds and maybe rain emitters.
NeoBokrug Elytis: UNSURE.
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Yesssssss
NeoBokrug Elytis: But the base system I made for helping me to place the sound emitters, is what I really wanted from the weather system anyway.
NeoBokrug Elytis: So they kind of cross-over out of my wants for doing neat things.
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): and sandstorms!
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): not darude tho
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Hahaha
NeoBokrug Elytis: Haha
NeoBokrug Elytis: Special places like the caves will get their own ambiance as well.
NeoBokrug Elytis: (I kind of want to rework them too)
NeoBokrug Elytis: Lets see….
NeoBokrug Elytis: Ah yes.
NeoBokrug Elytis: SL21B is coming up. I would like The Wastelands to be a part of it; but I do not have the time to build for it anymore. So I am seeing volunteers to create a build on The Wastelands’ behalf.
NeoBokrug Elytis: *seeking
NeoBokrug Elytis: If you’re interested, shoot me an IM, and we’ll suss it out.
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Oooh.
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Last year’s exhibit was nice!
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): we just pile up our main export .. bootsand
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Even if the giant bowling balls kept escaping and coming after us from across the street.
Aposiopesis Fullstop: :D
NeoBokrug Elytis: Another thing, Caledon is in the Community Expo. We got an invite, but I had to turn it down because I have too much going on this year so far. But the next round, I’d like to be apart of it, if possible. And again there — I’m looking for volunteers to help.
Verity Goodnight: I feel like that adds to the ambience
NeoBokrug Elytis: For those who do not know, the Community Expo is part of SLs new user WelcomeHub. Its an offshoot where folks go to find their SL communities.
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): what is the communety expo? im not getting out of here much
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): thx
NeoBokrug Elytis: It is mostly a lot of very small 15x15m builds, (and larger later).
NeoBokrug Elytis: So you’ve gotta make your presentation count. I will have a more active hand in that at least with regard to direction.
NeoBokrug Elytis: But for SL21B, I think most folks get the gist here.
NeoBokrug Elytis: I’ll give feedback.
NeoBokrug Elytis: Lets seee
NeoBokrug Elytis: Burnt Oak Drive-In: back in January my hard drive death killed all the work I did on the updates, even partitioning the updated content. I still have all the raw source files, but if I ever lost them I still have the DVDs. :)
NeoBokrug Elytis: BUT — I have been poking at it a bit in my spare time. I would like Burnt Oak a bit more automated for our projectionists, so they don’t really need my help for showing stuff.
NeoBokrug Elytis: So that’s a project for the upcoming months, getting that back to where I was. I spent a day with a new fresh approach, and got it to hardware decode, do most of the work on the hardware, and then the final encode will be on the CPU. Overall it is as fast as it works now for the projectionists, but it handles the higher quality as well. Some formats took forever to decode/encode, and I think I’ve nipped that in the bud.
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Oh, nice!
Rax Stooge: yay
Aposiopesis Fullstop: I’m still amazed by how it had trouble with the color palette – on the Black And Chrome version of Fury Road. :P
NeoBokrug Elytis: One wrinkle is that because The Wastelands and The Junkyard are the oldest regions, they have a bit of “we can’t make changes” because of how the regions are set up.
NeoBokrug Elytis: Caledon has similar problems and I don’t know how to fix it without just creating a new region and reallocating everyones parcels. So I don’t even think that is viable.
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Unless people are complaining loudly and wanting things to be restructured, I think it’s probably fine?
NeoBokrug Elytis: Unless LL offers a new region product, options for updates will always be limited.
NeoBokrug Elytis: Well, SL is going to be 21 years old now, and it is important to try to keep up where we can.
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): what would you want to change if you had the chance?
Ϯ ℳαץσ ⑬ Ϯ (myotis.draconia): SL can buy alcohol now
NeoBokrug Elytis: Similar land allocations to Malady Bog, so we could have better overall infrastructure.
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): depending where you are, even wl can
NeoBokrug Elytis: Oh, and the last thing I wanted to talk about is that PBR land is around the corner. I may try to comission someone to make our land in to PBR, or twist some DEV arms.
NeoBokrug Elytis: That means the land textures will change at some point.
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Oooh.
NeoBokrug Elytis: Okay any more questions about estate stuff?
Ϯ ℳαץσ ⑬ Ϯ (myotis.draconia): I bought a bottle of coke so I have something to go with my Rum
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Oh! I had one.
Verity Goodnight: I like the sound of land texture changes
NeoBokrug Elytis: I am going to try to keep them in the spirit of what we have
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Are there still plans to change the windlight settings? We’ve been on Winter settings for, like, two years solid. Haha
Storm Thunders: Same here, it could save me a lot of ground prims!
NeoBokrug Elytis: Plans yes: Time no.
NeoBokrug Elytis: Windlight is a very complicated thing.
Aposiopesis Fullstop passes the arm-twisting pliers.
NeoBokrug Elytis: I sent an email (and got a reply) from Torley to ask about how he did his windlights, and any tips he had.
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): will the new textures be available for landowners again?
NeoBokrug Elytis: Yes Cc
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): nice
NeoBokrug Elytis: I did see a tutorial on youtube how to make/convert a flat 2d texture to PBR, so … some late night I may play with that.
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Fancy!
NeoBokrug Elytis: Moving on to game stuff!
II. THE GAME
NeoBokrug Elytis: This weekend is the LAST weekend to collect EGGS and eggschange them with Scythejaw!
Aposiopesis Fullstop: EGGS!
NeoBokrug Elytis: Sandusky made us a very neat Egg this year, I was very surprised and I enjoyed it a lot for obvious reasons.
Ϯ ℳαץσ ⑬ Ϯ (myotis.draconia): i got 2 tin man eggs right away, i thought they were kinda rare
Verity Goodnight: haha I have none
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Aw man, I’ve gotten like five Junkyards so far, but none of the new one.
Dassina Andel: Those painted eggs are real good eatin’.
NeoBokrug Elytis: I also changed how the random eggs this year work, Basically after adding that years new one, I’ll pick a few from the old and add them to a smaller list.
NeoBokrug Elytis: So better odds of getting something new overall.
Sandling Honey: thx for the tip Rob!
Rob Niosaki: yw
Rob Niosaki: I am at 0 now
NeoBokrug Elytis: If you were Scavenging on April 1st, you may have encountered my April Fools Fallback crates. (They’re all hardcoded with it)
Aposiopesis Fullstop: :D
NeoBokrug Elytis: Same as previous years, but its there in case I want to do a special crate.
NeoBokrug Elytis: That’s about it for game stuff!
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Are the new Miasmata behaving nicely?
Dassina Andel: When is the weapon balance in the pipeline?
NeoBokrug Elytis: Yes. They are all good.
Ϯ ℳαץσ ⑬ Ϯ (myotis.draconia): im tired of all the miasmas being green. can you make some red ones?
Aposiopesis Fullstop: We had pink ones for Halloween! They ate Pumpkins!
Ϯ ℳαץσ ⑬ Ϯ (myotis.draconia): or yellow
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Can’t remember which year that was – two years ago?
Storm Thunders: Orange! so people using both viewers can be confused!
Aposiopesis Fullstop: And they were FAST!
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Hahaha
Tristan Kuramoto: Or make some you can interact with and have convos with
Tristan Kuramoto: have IC convos
NeoBokrug Elytis: Yeah, it would be nice to do that Dass. This whole year so far has had me chasing my ass. I only was doing ambient sound updates because working on all the Caledon rust had me revisiting that inworld store again.
Tristan Kuramoto: or OOC
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): there orange tristan and there unrezed avatars
Tristan Kuramoto: lol
Ϯ ℳαץσ ⑬ Ϯ (myotis.draconia): as a true goth, i demand black miasmas
NeoBokrug Elytis: Unrelated, if The Wastelands ever needs greenery, I got plenty now. Haha
Aposiopesis Fullstop: We mostly have brownery.
NeoBokrug Elytis: Though I really appreciate the swamps!
Rax Stooge: and greyery
Tristan Kuramoto: Love the swamps
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa): a bit of redery splatted in places too
Rax Stooge: we make our own redery
NeoBokrug Elytis: Bit it’s inside us. Like a pinata, we must release it.
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): mutsy tenders?
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa): the hell?
NeoBokrug Elytis: I take it almost everyones friends are in The Wastelands?
NeoBokrug Elytis: We need some new vici… fresh bloo… new visitors.
Sandling Honey: haha
Tristan Kuramoto: haha
Tristan Kuramoto: alot of my friends are here
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): i suggest forced teleport from the wl12b stand than
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): and chains
NeoBokrug Elytis: Haha
Verity Goodnight: yes!
Aposiopesis Fullstop: That’s the OTHER Wasteland.
NeoBokrug Elytis: Well I can pull some strings at the Expo. We have a Caledon teleporter there.
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): ohh .. im sorry
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): this is no silk?
Beasil Roundfield Squishes Kash Canis’s tail, what the fuckery?
Tristan Kuramoto: I have brought outsider friends here but they cant hang with the post apoc style lol
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Not even Dune Trapper silk anymore!
NeoBokrug Elytis: Okay! Time for an open floor for Role Play and Events Discussion!
III. THE ROLEPLAY & EVENTS
Storm Thunders: actually, preparing some noise for when the Furiosa hits might not be a bad idea
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): convert them
Ϯ ℳαץσ ⑬ Ϯ (myotis.draconia): has Rum and coke and lemon flavored wafers
NeoBokrug Elytis: In about 10 mnutes I’ll ask folks to clear the arena to prep for Fight Night
Aposiopesis Fullstop: The Red Revival takes place in two weeks, on Saturday, April 20! A Ghoul-for-a-day festival of music, movies, mushrooms, and mayhem!
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): and fire .. cleansing fire
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa): woot!
Storm Thunders: RR!
Tristan Kuramoto: real quick did anyone see the news about the land impact allowance?
Tristan Kuramoto: in sl
NeoBokrug Elytis: Yes, I covered that at the start of the meeting. :)
Aposiopesis Fullstop: If you’d like to volunteer to be ritually stabbed by a whole lotta Ghouls – and potentially turn, yourself – lemme know! Slots are already filled for performers, but the schedule can be seen here (or in the posters littered about. https://www.flickr.com/photos/fullstop/53621787609/in/dateposted/ )
Tristan Kuramoto: ah ok i missed that
NeoBokrug Elytis: Angh, you had a couple new releases this past month, yeah? :)
Angharad Greggan: yeah, sure did
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Roleplay-wise, the “good” Doktor Pileus has been wandering around again. And Malice seems to have emerged from a long sleep in the Junkyard tunnels…
Storm Thunders loads the nailgun.
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa): ;o
Sandling Honey: Thankees for the tip Mutsy! :D
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa): yw!
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Only the nailgun? :V
Aposiopesis Fullstop: OH
Tristan Kuramoto: Many ghouls are sleeping down there
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): if you shot them in there foot. they can only run in a very tight cyrcle storm
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Neo. Will we get a little zombie invasion for the occasion in Burnt Oak this year?
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Hahaha
NeoBokrug Elytis: Unsure!
Storm Thunders: exactly! slow them down, and off you go!
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): in running away situations its not important to be the fastes. being the second slowest is totaly fine
Aposiopesis Fullstop: The Red Parade will also be on Friday the 19th at 6pm SLT! Grab some sort of inworld instrument (a plausably IC one) and wander around the Wastes making a godsawful din! :D
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): i wana see ned play the fiddle
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Hahaha!
Storm Thunders: I would watch that
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa): bagpipes, anyone played the bagpipes yet?
Aposiopesis Fullstop: I can just IMAGINE all the swears…
Storm Thunders: noooOoOoo!
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa): lol
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): plasticbagpipes?
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa): would be! :D
Storm Thunders: Throw some cats in a bag, squeeze the bag
Verity Goodnight: goatpipes?
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Sand hippo stomach bagpipes. Or maybe that’s how you make WL: Haggis.
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa): hahahaha!!
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Hagpipes.
Mutsumi (mutsy.kaligawa): mmmh, sounds… good?
Aposiopesis Fullstop: What are the crossover events for this month, Neo?
NeoBokrug Elytis: I think Gomi wants to do a drive-in, and someone in Caledon wants to host a DJ set. I don’t think anything is quite solid yet.
The Mutant Witch of the Wastes (ccindy.pfeffer): warzone in new garbaged?
Aposiopesis Fullstop: Right on!