Thursday, December 8, 2011

New Premium Gift! [Updated]

Months after announcing a monthly gift for Premium Residents in Second Life, The Lab has finally gotten around to putting out a second one out at the various kiosks (click here for a location list). It is a fine-looking sailing boat, as you can see in the pic below. Hopefully it will encourage Residents to try the rather nice vehicle sandboxes available to Premium Residents (click here for a list of Premium Sandboxes).


If you are a Premium Resident, you probably received an email about the new gift so you can click the "A Sailor's Guide" links for other places to sail. The gift also comes with several landmarks for sailing locations. I'll try to find the nice sailing tutorial my friend Dusty came up with and post it here so you can get the most fun out of your boat if the included instructions aren't enough (just leave a comment).

The boat is very, very nice. A HUD lets you customize some textures as well as gives you control of how the boat is operated (wind vs. motor, for example), and other aspects of your experience. It appears to be well made by the Linden Moles (of course ... the Moles rock!). One really cool bit is that after you sit, simply click the boat and your avie moves from pose to pose to pose, one of which is perfect if you get seasick. Is the boat worth the membership fee? Probably not, but if you are a Premium Resident, then you should certainly take advantage of this freebie.

[Update] My friend Dusty contacted me with more info:

  • The Linden boat seats up to 11 avies at a time.
  • The Wind mode is "dumbed down a bit" so you have no real control over how the sails interact with the wind. So it's sort of like an Auto Pilot.
  • Sailing classes or tutorials aren't really needed, but they might be if you upgrade to another boat, like the FREE Nemo 2 at Dusty's place (and other locations). 

I've sailed the Nemo 2 that Dusty recommends and it is more fun because you have to read the winds and make decisions. If I just want to party with folks, then the Linden boat would be great.

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