Monday, May 25, 2009

Heralding Aulë (the) Finesmith

I have the alt Aule Finesmith now. This solved three problems for me:

Problem one: when one account gets so busy and in demand that Second Life becomes more like a second job, it's time to make a new account just for having fun. I'd spent so much time that I wasn't even posting to this blog for months.

Problem two: in the Builders of Arda sims, where I role play the J.R.R.Tolkien character Aulë the Smith, there are many sims where I need land rights or group rights to play my role effectively. The owners and organizers are more than happy to grant me those right, but I need open groups because of
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Limits

Groups:
* Max. # of groups you can belong to - 25
o Roles within groups are sort of like sub-groups. In many cases, you can use them instead of creating new groups.
* Min. # of members in a group - 2
o A group with only 1 person for 48 hours will be disbanded (cancelled). Unless the group owns land.
* Max. # of roles allowed in a group - 10 (including "Owners" and "Everyone", which can't be deleted)

Problem three: when your name is "Arth Karas", but the other players are supposed to remember to call you "Aulë" regularly and with some respect, you want to make it easy for them. Notecards, IM and floating text over the avatars heads are fine, but matching the role to the avatar name is even better.

Opportunity: When I saw new players using the last name "Finesmith", I located where I could register it using the SL name search website, and made Aulë right away. The name was too perfect to overlook.

Since I make most of my own clothes, skins and attachments now, it's been easy to make Aule a mirror of Arth as Aulë. Many players hardly notice the change right away, except as Aule befriends them.


I'll gradually wean Arth out of Arda, so he can continue operating in the rest of Second Life while Aulë has fun being a Tolkien fan in the Arda sims and forums.

No comments: