Monday, June 10, 2013

Raz Cafe, hypergrid, and Raison D'etre

Thanks to a very generous friend, I was finally able to get Raz Cafe onto the hypergrid. I have nothing against the grid's I've been on, but there's nothing quite like being able to hand someone such a short, sweet, domain name. Seriously, to access Raz Cafe on the hypergrid, this is all you type into the map:

razcafe.com:9000

I love it!

Now, a little about setup.

I'm currently using the least restrictive permissions on the sim possible. I want to be able to give away items if I happen to collect or make any here, and I want everyone to be able to come in with their avatars intact.

There is no registration to this grid, its available only as a visitor's location, and only via hypergrid. Also, the sim is built from the latest trunk, so I imagine I can keep up with the latest goodies as they come up.

The entire grid is one sim.. so I guess it can't really be called a grid. A single sim instance, that's it. I may be romanticizing it a bit, but the idea of a little social oasis out in the middle of nowhere sort appeals to me in a bit of an endearing way.

But now that big looming question...

What the heck do I do now?

What is Raz Cafe for, anyhow? My goal is not to get as many people on it concurrently at any given time- though regulars would be incredible. I'm also not using it much as a testing sandbox. Someone visiting last night suggested something like branded t-shirts, that sounds sort of fun, so I may do that :) build up a little freebie gift shop, hehe. I'd also been thinking of a small hypergate hub, but there's already places that do that rather well. I wouldn't be offering anything significantly better or meaningful to the metaverse by doing that.

I think what it comes down to is I just want to make a nice place to visit, and I want it to be known as a nice place to see. In a world with endlessly growing virtual real-estate, and huge expanses of land, I think I wanted to make it a point to think small or compact. To make it cozy with a human element, the kind that can only be done by slowly gathering stories and ideas all into one concentrated area.

So in the end, I still really have no idea what to do with the cafe, but I do hope people continue to visit, and leave behind a bit of themselves in the form of a notecard with a story of their time visiting, or a photo to put on my photo board.

I really think a guest book would be nice.

I'll figure something out- at the very least, there's a home for the cafe now, the hypergrid standalone I've been wanting. I suppose until I figure out what to do, and mayb even from then on, I'll just continue prattling my thoughts out onto this blog, and talk about my own goings on.

In that vein, I'd like to note that my LSL bot is up and running. She'll be sitting there quietly, an identical clone of me, so the cafe feels like its' being maintained even when nobody is around for days, hehe.


I think one thing I'd like to do is add secrets around the cafe, I'll have to come up with some good ones :) 

Until next time!

3 comments:

  1. your cafe sounds absolutely wonderful and the spitrit in which you present it is beautiful (i'd be honoured if you had my espresso machine in there and you can give it away free w/o attribution)

    i had a spot in an art gallery inSL that became a poetry reading spot on tuesday evenings, perhaps that is something that would work for Raz Cafe?

    perhaps you can host artist's works as well? i have an exhibit in OpenSim of a San Francisco photographer that i personally enjoy

    i very much like your idea of hidden things and i love your AV (i loved being a beaver and a fennec inSL)

    good luck!

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  2. I'd love to put your espresso machine in there! :) And it wouldn't have character if things people sent me didn't have their names on it, so I'd prefe it was ^^

    Poetry reading sounds like a great idea. It would be cool if groups used the cafe as a meeting spot for their own events, I'd be more than happy to set up a google calendar for it and display it on the front page of razcafe.com

    If I hosted art I'd like to spread it around the cafe in subtle ways, like magazines on the table and pictures propped up on the bar. If it was a lot of pictures I could make a secret auto-teleport if someone walked into the back corner of the cafe :}

    Thanks for the compliment on the av ^^ made it along time ago when I was learning how, hehe. Also, thanks very much for the kind words and ideas, I do hope you come to visit sometime :)

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  3. Hi Raz. I haven't been able to find your grid on the Hypergrid for about a month. Is everything ok?

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