ROMA Moves to an Island Estate (Oct 06)

From ROMA Scribae

[[ This is the first part of a submission for Archaeolog archaeology blog (archaeology.org), but was too long so was much much cut down for the first part of an interview Torin did there. The uncut version here gives a good creator’s history of ROMA. ]]

Torin Golding:

"I had been approached by the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS) [1] right before this about partnering up, since they were getting ready to open a Roman themed island of their own. They are a group that operates as a social experiment their own specific representative government on the SL grid with their own group of Citizens. Some of their organizers had seen my Roman build on the Mainland (which I was calling ROMA by that time) and approached me to help build their planned new residential sim based on a Roman theme. But I had no desire to lock myself into an external system of control (which I felt was already contentious and overly bureaucratic there). I knew immediately that I did not want to take part in their Roman themed residential sim run as a political experiment, but it did spur me on to take the plunge and get my own Roman island up and running before they did. (Since then a few CDS Citizens have become friends, but I still remain separate from their activities.)"

"Once the island was delivered to me, I did a construction blitz. I had planned every building and structure out to the last detail during the month or so I was waiting for delivery, and I spent another month building everything. During this time, ROMA was closed to everyone except me. Things were mostly finished on the Ides (15th) of October 2006 when I finally opened the doors. I retained the name ROMA (always written as capital letters like a Roman inscription) and bought one virtual newspaper ad. I had opened before the CDS island."

"Now that I had the space and the resources, I could provide things for visitors to do beyond just wandering around a ‘virtual museum’ of Roman inspired buildings and art. I created games, treasure hunts, automated dramatic productions, and other activities designed around ancient Roman themes. When the first people began teleporting in, they found a series of attractions scattered around the sim."

"From the beginning, every monument contained a visible ‘info button’ that when touched would give the visitor a notecard. This was designed as a page of a narrative of a long lost book by Pausanias, the second century CE geographer. It detailed his travels to my island of ROMA with a paragraph ‘in translation’ and his description of the monument. Below this, designed as ‘commentary’ on the ‘ancient’ passage, more text located the building or structure within Roman history and culture, often also commenting on the decisions I made translating the monument into SL."

Back to the ROMA Historia Page