Svarga Back in Second Life

By Bixyl Shuftan

On Sunday afternoon, March 21, just after logging on I heard some great news. The Svarga sim was back! I looked it up on the map, and there it was, so I ported over. And there was a sight I hadn’t seen in many months. What some people called one of the Seven Wonders of Second Life was back.

Svarga was started early, around 2004. By 2006, it was complete and further construction ceased. It’s creator, Laukosargas Svarog, created a grand island of waterfalls, mountains, rivers, stone temples, and the artificial life experiments, the “Eco System” project, gave the sim it’s own cycle of life, with clouds raining on the plants, bees pollinating, and occasionally eaten by a flytrap lily, and other aspects. It was considered one of the most ingeniously built places in the Metaverse. More can be read in our April 2007 article .

In December 2008, Laukosargas made her decision to look for a buyer for Svarga. Running the sim was just too expensive for her, she felt, and Second Life seemed no better to her than when she first went about on it.

Some months later, the sim vanished from the map. It seemed that this wonder of the Metaverse had vanished into the virtual nether forever, much to the sadness of many who had seen the area and marveled at it’s details. Until now, that is.

Checking Laukosargas’s profile, she says the sim has a new owner, even though Svarga still lists her as in charge. She also asked not to be contacted, saying she plans to return to Second Life only sparingly, once in a few months.

As time goes on, someone will figure out exactly what happened and what we can expect. But for now, we can take heart that once again, this gem of a sim is once again open for visits, and not just a memory.

The entry point for Svarga is at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Svarga/5/124/22 .

By Bixyl Shuftan

STA - A Great Sim Comes to an End

Group Notice From: GlobetrekkerBob Lane

Guys, I am truly sorry to tell you that STA Travel decided to discontinue the SL project today, and will shut the island today as well.  Thank you all for everything, you have been the heart of this place, and I am going to miss having all of you here more than you'd believe.  This was one of the best jobs I've had, and I truly had hoped that we'd be able to continue on everything we accomplished last year.  If you have any questions, IM me, I'll be at the Orientation Island while it's still open.

Bob



Group Notice From: Eruanna Rossini

I just wanted to say my personal thank you to all of you for helping make STA such a warm and inviting place for the new residents and a fun place to hang out. I'll miss hanging out there, as we all will, but I'm sure we'll meet again, somewhere out there, beneath the pale SL sky.
And for those who want to keep helping new people, I'll be more than happy to add you to the Help People Group. Good luck everyone, and see you around!

Eruanna Rossini



I can't exactly remember when I first came across the STA, possibly August  2007 when my first close friend in Second Life sent me a teleport to join her there, and for the first time I saw the sandbox, followed by a run north to a bigger island to sit at a table and chat with her and her friends.

Since then, we continued to meet and hang out over there time to time. Sometimes it was for them to build something in the sandbox. Later on, we would attend the parties that began appearing there, even a couple special events. Often it was just to chat about going's on. It wasn't long before we ran into and became friends with GlobetrekkerBob Lane and Eruanna Rossini who ran the sim. They would always chat with voice while until recently we answered with just the keyboard. As Bob had been a world traveler, some of what he had to say was quite interesting. Then there were the staff, August, Aellyn, Gemini, StormShadow, Maccy, Blarion, Keli, Sparklin, Ivanna, Rashed, and others. Then there were others I met there and became friends with. It was also the place I took a number of my funny pictures for newspaper "cartoons." Blarion himself had the job of being the regular DJ every Monday for dance parties at the dorm.

For newcomers, the STA was often their first real location inside Second Life, a circular track set up in the center STA Orientation Island for them for learn some basic skills, with staff on hand to help them out. I would often join in with the helping out, and eventually Bob made me a part-time staff member as well, just keep on doing what I had been doing while there. While chatting with my friends at the tables around the globe in the center of the sim, say hello, offer help, and answer questions. And with the dorms, newcomers had a place to call home for a while. With the globe's landmarks to counterparts to real-life locations, newcomers and experienced had places to explore.

Problem was, the backers of the sim felt they were not getting their money's worth. Bob was getting hints of trouble for a couple months. Then at 9:00 AM on January 25, 2008 he got the news: the sim was being closed down. He and Anna told all they could who were on at the time what was about to happen, and they gathered one last time. Shortly after Noon, it was over. The sim was gone, nothing more than an image on the map to remind us of what was.

The STA is gone, but already plans are being made to make up for it's loss. "Shade" at the Empathy sim is planning a place of it's own for newcomers "to meet, greet and be informed in the spirit of The STA Community. They were good, let's try and make this better for all new arrivals in SL." Sean Voss, who's Landmark Island had partnered with the STA, will continue making his weekly tours in Second Life.

As for Bob, he's taking a few days off Second Life, then plans on coming back to try something new. Whatever it is, no doubt he'll succeed.

Bixyl Shuftan