ROMA on the Mainland (Late 05 - 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. ]]

From around December 2005 to October 15 2006, ROMA inhabited about a 1/4 sim plot on the mainland Linda sim. There was no land, as it was an ocean sim, so ROMA inhabited a large platform with a chariot racetrack below on the sea floor. The prototype Theater of Dionysus and the Humanism Garden floated above on sky platforms.

Torin Golding: "After a few months, I had a basic build on this 1/4 sim Mainland plot. It rested entirely upon the water, so I was designed as a floating platform containing a river (the "Tiber") that wound through it. It had a welcome area, a tavern dispensing free virtual food and drinks, a small baths complex with cold warm and hot rooms, a basilica, a round temple to Apollo, a large temple to Jupiter, a small museum (in the base of the Jupiter temple), a version of the Mausoleum of Hadrian, an Egyptian themed library with free texts (modern and ancient), a throne room, a garden for relaxing, a gladiator arena, an underwater chariot racing game, and a secret chamber under the gardens that was dressed up like Hades (complete with Virgil's famous quote about the 'decent to Avernus' translating automatically between Latin and English). I soon realized that the limits of the SL building engine and prim allowances would not allow me to authentically re-create ancient Roman structures or at least do so with any great detail. So I began to develop an approach that was 'suggestive' of ancient Roman architecture, but using the parameters of the SL building engine and prims."

"I was on the Mainland for about 6 months. I got reasonable traffic, although it was clear some people didn’t know what to make of the place. There wasn’t much to do at that point but wander around and look at the build and the art. It was just part of the fabric of the Mainland. There were boats you could ride on the Tiber with and eventually the chariot racing, but not much else due to the fact I was being limited by the amount of space and prims I had. Plus, another drawback of the Mainland reared its head- the inability to control one’s neighbors. Several builds moved in that were great resource hogs and incredibly ugly. Feeling limited by the prim limits and the crowding of the mainland, I began to think seriously about taking another huge leap and buying an island. I had to convince myself that I would be able to afford a thousand dollar setup and a 200 dollar monthly fee. I was doing this completely on my own. I hoped that by setting up a small Market with stalls for rent I could cover the monthly fee and my own minimal market sales could eventually in a year make back the thousand dollars. So I took the plunge around August 2006."

A few images: [[1]] [[2]] [[3]]

More images found here: [4]

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