Royal Caledon Air Force leaves SL
November 9, 2008 1:51 pm
Air traffic was busy last night in SL, as the Royal Caledon Air Force gathered for a special meeting regarding TEOTGAWKI. This seems to be their code name for ‘The End of The Grid as We Know It’. The latest government decision made it impossible to Second Life’s elite air force to sustain their bases and training skies, which are mainly located on ‘Openspace’ land.
Although the RCAF guarantees they will keep symbolic presence in Second Life - events and some role-play - I can’t help but slightly panick. Now the RCFA moves it’s air crafts & dogfights to IL-2 Sturmovik 1946, is this the end of serious air plane development in Second Life? And with Second Life’s elite air force gone, who will protect us when the Horde attacks? General Business Solutions with his troops of lawyers and accountants waving around Trademarks, graphs and annual reports?
Famous Aviatrix Zoe Connolly on the matter: “As long as present Openspace sims exist, I’ll continue to schedule air combat dogfights until the end of 2008. There will no longer be any organized dogfights for us beginning in January 2009. Although our main events will obviously change, EDF and RCAF will still exist. Our communities live on in both the EDF and RCAF Nings, and for those of us who wish for an air combat experience there is a discussion on the RCAF Ning on how we may continue to dogfight on the web. There is still hope for us die-hard pilots, but SL is no longer a friendly place for our activities.“
Testing Yolto.
Update: Other armed forces might be in trouble too, as reported by Vegna Fouroux on the SL Herald:
New Jessie sim is now an established combat region where all groups and freelancers can come and fight - but New Jessie is on the verge of collapse due to financial problems and they certainly won’t be able to pay for it with the new 66% void sim price increase. Nor will other militaries who work off Void Sims for that matter like Vengement or The Echelon Union or 2142 or The Militant Collective. Unless you’ve got a lot of cash in your back pocket that is. Running a military just became a hell of a lot more expensive.
No, only a few militaries like the Merczateers, Vanguard Armed Forces and the Ordo Imperialis could afford to pay for those kinds of costs…and they aren’t even fighting each other! (or on void sims for that matter). have you grasped the point? The only militaries that will be left alive, will be the ones that aren’t fighting each other.
14 Responses to “Royal Caledon Air Force leaves SL”
I’m going along too. Look forward to a lot of cool machinima as we blend both worlds together!
Yes, Miss GoSpeed, after seeing this, I think the dogfight imagery will be better!
I’m surprised their move is only based on finance. SL never was a good platform for flying and dogfights, imho. Other engines have always been better in that, and generally have a good selection of planes to choice from.
The strong point in SL is in (avatar)roleplay for these kinds of groups. I expect them to use both, have pre and post roleplay in SL and the actual flying in their flight simulator of choice. Much like some groups do their wow dungeon planning in SL and then execute it in wow.
Frans, I assume that their choice for IL-2 was made easier by prettier air crafts, larger squadrons and actual bomb impacts.
But it’s the Caledon Royal Air Force, right? I assume the ‘Caledon’ part kept them in SL for that long. You can have a house with your plane parked behind it, you can build your own air controls, aviator clothing, … . I don’t know if that’s possible in IL-2, but heavily doubt it.
Thanks for the post, Vint. Very nice indeed!
To clarify for Frans: the move is NOT a financial one. Our dogfights don’t cost us anything other than time and the cost of each individual aircraft we use. We also have a variety of free aircraft available. The move will benefit many of us who spend top dollar for great vehicles, but we were more than willing to do that for our activities. The fact that I don’t have to spend as much on aircraft is merely a small financial benefit. But the loss in not having a complete experience in SL is far greater to me.
Yes Frans, I’m well aware that other game engines are far better than SL for air combat. The move is a final (and sad) admission on our part that SL is no longer a friendly place for our activities.
I’ve been fascinated by the wonderful builders I’ve come to know over the past year. I greatly appreciate their talent and skill. In the future those aircraft will make great decorations in my hangar for an activity like a dance or meeting.
I should point to the post title “Royal Caledon Air Force leaves SL” and make clear that only the air combat is moving. Everything else we do in SL will remain.
Mmm, you gave me quite a start there, Vint! Left me wondering what I didn’t already know. But yeah - it’s only the large dogfights which are moving away. That makes better sense on the new platform anyway, but as well as the RCAF, Extropia Defense Force by association is certainly not going anywhere!
I do admit that I’ve never been into Second Life flight ever since I attempted a cross-continent flight and got Security-orb bounced 5 times a quarter of my flight across. Moving the flight combat part off SL and onto a dedicated platform while keeping the avatar and role-play quality on SL helps to get the best of both worlds, in my opinion.
Faith Hope and Charity
More IL-2 Machinima ;)
http://zoeconnolly.blogspot.com/2008/11/faith-hope-and-charity.html
@Talon
Aley Arai (the once owner of the Privateer Space sim) had an edurance test called the Kestel Run.
Fly from south to north across the original mainland continent. If you crash or are ejected you must start in the same sim or one to the east or west. Person who crashes the least number of times wins. :-)
There are still plenty of serious and talented builders in SL and they wont be going anywhere, anytime soon at least.
There are still some large arenas for dogfighting in SL as well. My own sims, the Aeronautica simulators, (one full, two Open Space) will not be downsized and I will be staying in SL. We have a vibrant and very active open dogfighting community– A group of us have been actively developing an accurate, physics based combat system for SL called VICE over the last year which does use bombs, multiple weapon types a plethora of other options, and it is already in wide use in the SL aircraft community.
RCAF was actually using the system, very briefly, but many had said it was a bit difficult and they had actually preferred more simplistic sensor based systems such as TCS (23.5m x 23.5 @ 80m sensor cone for registering hits), so I found it very surprising that they were considering IL2 Sturmovik, which is generally regarded as one of the most difficult and realistic flight/air combat simulation games currently available– this game has a very high learning curve…
Regardless of the reasons, it is sad news to hear that RCAF will be leaving SL. All hope is not lost and there are those of us who will be here to stay. Best of luck to them!
I need to clarify again…
RCAF is NOT leaving SL *sighs*
The only thing that has really changed for the RCAF is we will no longer organize large scale air combat after the New Year.
RCAF is here to stay!
http://zoeconnolly.blogspot.com/2008/11/rcaf-is-here-to-stay.html
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