MOLEWATCH
by Marianne McCann
The Moles Get Glytchy
The Moles have brainstormed a new game, and this one is grid wide. Tyrah and the Curse of the Magical Glytches introduces us to the nefarious and somewhat hard-brained machination of the first avatar, Ruth as she releases droves of "Glytches" across the grid. Residents can travel to several locations and try to catch the cute little things, while attempting to evade their spells!
And yes, at least two Bay City locations are part of this game: you'll find them in Falmouth and in Hau Koda, which additional locations likely coming soon!
THIS MONTH IN HISTORY
You'd think Taxes are a topic for April, but not in Second Life! In the olden days, one had to pay taxes in here, with a fee charged for each and every prim you rez. You could get some of the money back when you derezzed them, but using some prim properties - or rezzing them above the ground - could incur even more cost.
The whole point, best as I can tease out, was to provide some financial pressure to enforce usage and best practices, but as any one can tell you, Second Life Residents are not known as people who always abide by the rules.
This led to the infamous tax revolt in the Americana community in the Blue region, which started to simmer down in September of 2002. This did not stop others from trying to evade taxes in other ways.
In the 21st of October of 2002, this can abruptly to an end with the release of Second Life 1.1. It included a lot of innovations, many of which are commonplace in Second Life today: You could finally "Always Run," Clothing, textures, sounds and scripts gained permissions, and you could for the first time wear an actual skirt.
To the point of this article, however, you saw changes in how the taxes were accessed, and other changes to prevent tax evasion from buying and swapping land and objects. This stronger tax plan was the end of the Americana region, which was symbolically "burned" by its Residents who simply could not afford to hold all they had.
Version 1.2 ended this, as the advent of tier using real-world money meant the end of L$-based taxes.
More more thing, and I've mentioned this before: Americana, in the Blue Region, was in part the brainchild of the avatar who would become Blue Linden. Americana, with its Route 66 and nods to the American Experience would later inspire the first Mole project... Bay City.
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