In the shelter of the Great Tree, amid bright banners and excited chatter, the players gathered.

In the shelter of the Great Tree, amid bright banners and excited chatter, the players gathered.

When the streaming music refused to play, Zayn Till picked up his bouzouki and played it live on voice chat, giving an impromptu history lesson on the musical instrument while the last few audience members arrived for the meeting he'd called.

The fact that Zayn appeared as a smartly suit-clad and hatted rabbit, or that the gathering was chiefly comprised of colorfully dressed small animals, was not remarked upon.  This was, after all, Raglan Shire.

Raglan Shire town hall meetings, June 6 & 7, 2015.

Zayn Till, Magistrate of the Raglan Shire community in Second Life, had asked for his folk to gather at two town meetings in early June to discuss the future for their land, their residents & shops, and the many artists of the group.  Some of the news was grim:  both the Raglan Shire group itself and its host game Second Life have lost a massive number of players, and the Shire lands are teetering on the edge of financial ruin.  The message of both gatherings was quite simple:  adapt and recruit, or bid the Shire goodbye.

The dwindling population of Raglan's host game, Second Life (SL), threatens the Raglan's group's very existence.  A sandbox-and-social game, Second Life offers an overwhelmingly variety of social groups of every imaginable topic and has just had its 12th birthday. 

SL offers tremendously flexible content-authoring tools to create a 3D electronic world of individually shaped and placed virtual structures and environments and even devices--built for the most part by its players.  Players in SL can build a dream or create a business--but the game is often overshadowed, internally by many SL groups' emphasis on a sexual angle, and externally by newer game engines & glittery game play in its competitors.

Over 8 years ago, Raglan Shire opened as a non-profit creative community alternative to much of the rest of SL. On virtual simulation islands with a forest and fields handbuilt by its group members, Raglan is intended as a haven for kind hearts, creativity, and fun despite a real-life world that is often discouraging for artists, musicians, and the simple joy of play.  Seasonal events and weekly activities feature fantastic community exhibits such as the Art Walk hedge maze, and a variety of different games, such as the popular object-guessing "Prim Charades."  Profits, when there are any, are immediately plowed back into keeping the Shire sims running.

Raglan Shire members between games of "Can't Stop" in 2012 at the Raglan Galaxy sim.

Part of a community "build" exhibit during the Raglan "Shocktober" festival, October 2014. 

"Sims" (real estate in the game, where a simulation of an environment resides) and "prims" (primitive objects, the base building blocks for SL's 3D engine) in the Shire have been shaped not only into a tree city, shops, classroom and event centers, but also a sandbox area for item creation (the "Silica Cubicle" or Silly Cube), a harbor & wharf, an outer space habitat, and forest & pasture homes for actual Shire residents.  The trees and the land below them are home to many events (live music, dances with live DJs, art exhibits, & game events of all kinds) and the shops of specialty merchants for the varied and unusual Second Life avatars who have come to Raglan:  dragons large & small from the Isle of Wyrms; Tinies;  Dinkies; and other unusual SL avatars. 

The Raglan Shire tree city today.

Raglan Shire is best known for the avatar style worn by many of its inhabitants, small biped animals known as Tinies, but is open to all avatar types.  Generally the Shire is non-combat except for special events, and PG rated for public areas and group chat.   The wide variety of animal avatars can give the feeling of being at a teddy bear's picnic or a living version of Wind in the Willows, only much more manic.  

It has become a true community, with bonds & friendships beyond gameplay, or chat.  Raglan members include extraordinarily intelligent and technically adept people, who invent and build wonderful devices and games.  Some folk in Raglan have serious real life ailments, and Raglan, via SL, lets them forget for a while.  Whether the goal is stress relief or socializing or building toys as a group of equals away from real life pressures, members of Raglan Shire have found delight in gathering as colorful forest folk and being silly on the subjects of waffles, the color purple, and more.

Raglan University and the Happy Hippos host the Shire's live classes on how to create, decorate, and code (yes, computer code) any number of simple to complex items.  The more unusual avatars take advantage of the "built by players" 3D engine of Second Life, as do the Shire lands.  Complex objects (such as animal heads with blinking eyes for avatars), environments, displays, and games are created by players using geometric shapes and bits of computer script known as LSL (which looks a lot like Microsoft C++ to my ancient eyes).

Player & teacher Toady Nakamura leads a class on Second Life item creation on the Shire sims--June 23, 2015.

But back to the events at hand:

At the two recent town meetings, Zayn Till formally announced that Raglan Shire's treetops city's aging 3D "build" will be completely transformed by the capable hands (paws) of the build team, dubbed by Zayn "Nils and the Cats."

One of the platforms for the new treetop city.

Ground shops, treetop shops, game event platforms, and former ground-level event areas will all be moved up into a brand new version of the tree city, including "the Great Tree Steve," with the exception of the sandbox area, the Silica Cubicle or Silly Cube.  Zayn Till presented footage of one of the re-built trees, a charming set of shops with curvy styling and acorns on a tree platform with a built-in brook and waterfall.  Since the town hall meetings, photos and miniature mockups of the revamp have been placed in the Shire for folk to study on their own.

A new platform, with waterfall and brook.

The shop design for the new treetop city.

Zayn took questions, many from shop merchants, event organizers, and those with Raglan homes.  He addressed the fact that the diminishing number of Raglan group members threatens the group's survival as well as the continuing existence of Raglan's lands. 

Without enough interested Raglan folk to create specialty goods and rent stores in Raglan's lands, the continuing existence of those lands (which require quite real financial support) is shaky, thread-thin from month to month.  Once a month, the financial deadline threatens them all, with no grace period.  Everything gone, in 24 hours, if the tier payment to Linden Labs (the company behind Second Life) is not met.

Zayn Till's call to action in June 2015 is for the Raglan Shire community to work with him on transforming the lands and shops, to recruit curious and creative folks with kind hearts to both Second Life & Raglan Shire, and, if they value the Shire, to stand up and work with him to keep the Shire alive.

I've scurried around in the Shire myself for a number of years, as a feline Tiny, and still find friendly hearts and sheer fun in being able to build part of a game in order to play with the results. 

So now I'm asking you:

Are you tired of only thumping heads to gain experience levels and thump more heads?

Do you value stories over combat?

Are you an animal-oriented artist or writer, or just friendly and artistic?

Are you hands-on into game design?

If you're any of these, or simply curious, what are you waiting for?

Second Life's Raglan Shire

Sharon on Twitter
@TheBlueWereCat