A Very Long Time

It’s been a very long time since I have posted anything in my blog, and few people have been nudging me to do some sort of update here….. so, here it is, a blog update!

What have I been up to in the last four or five months of absence?

Well, due to a death in the family last fall, I took a few months of ‘work leave’….. and really didn’t work on much of anything. Emotions around me at the time had me drained and de-motivated, and there was very little I could really work on anything extensively. So, really, from Oct-Nov right up until a couple weeks ago, while I was in the world, I was more or less….. out of business, except to provide customer support for those who needed. But now, I’m back!

My beloved Emmalyn Wei keeps me company and occupied in the world of Second Life. There is nobody else who I would ever want to share my Second Life with outside of her….. she’s full of fantastic ideas and great advice….. we spend almost every moment online together, for over a year now. In Second Life, a world of quick romances and infatuations, that’s quite an achievement! So, much love to my Emma! A girl unlike any other!

Re-discovering Second Life. Well, I’ve decided constantly coming up with ideas in Second Life and jumping from project to project for that little bit of inspiration isn’t always fun….. so, I gave up on the idea of ‘working’ in Second Life. Everything I do now, is done for fun and pure creative outlets….. and if I feel it’s good enough to go into the Dictatorshop, then it does! If not, then it doesn’t. I’ve even been going on little exploration trips in Second Life, randomly teleporting, discovering new lands and new people….. getting outside of the world of BDSM. It’s really quite a bit of fun! And there are some truly spectacular builds out there in Second Life you really need to take a look at.

Now, projectwise……

LockGuard V3….. is still on the table (as it has been for awhile). Quite honestly, it’s not going to be vastly different from LockGuard V2, but it will have a few requested features and will still be 100% backwards compatible with all current LockGuard items out there. There won’t be any need for designers to upgrade their old items to LockGuard V3 unless they want to add new options to their toys which will take advantage of the few new features. LockGuard V3, as with all previous releases, will be released as free and open source….. and will continue to be a top Second Life standard.

Poseball Rezzing System….. It’s no secret that I’ve been developing a poseball rezzing system which is extremely easy to setup, extremely easy to use, and 100% reliable. The Capture RP van I have on the market has been using the initial system design flawlessly for nearly half a year, without a single reported failure or need for a reset, even under heavy use in free sex areas, and that is a good sign of success. So, this project has been the primary meat on my table the past few days while I take the initial design and push it even further so it can hold much more animation data. Of course, the system I’m working on will also have innate LockGuard support, so yay to bondage furniture designers who will use the system. It’s also a sure bet that once this system is placed on the market…. it will become a) the easiest to setup, b) the single most reliable system to use, and c) operate perfectly fine under heavy/constant use in laggy sim conditions.

Chakram….. This was something I more or less created for fun, but released as a product none-the-less. A Xena-inspired chakram which can be worn on the hip, held in the hand and thrown (and it will return), or split in half and used like a pair of blades. While the chakram itself is a very simple (which is good for physics), it’s scripting and animation is anything but simple. Try it yourself, how could you not like it?

Black Widow Whip….. the younger sister whip to the Dragon’s Tail. While the Dragon’s Tail has been one of my favorite products, and probably one of my eldest (outside of a couple cages), I felt it was time that the Dragon’s Tail had some company….. and boy, does it ever! Giving this new whip a dark, braided leather design, a few new styles of whips, creating a whole new set of smooth animations, and producing new sound effects timed to each animation….. the Black Widow Whip really shines as a true sibling of the notorious Dragon’s Tail.

Paintball in BigPond….. In the Pondfield sim, I created an elaborate team game system….. a server-controlled paintball system which automatically handles players, teams, game styles (deathmatch, team play, team capture the flag), and has checks against cheating. Honestly, although this was a corporate project, it was probably one of the most fun things I had ever had the opportunity to create in Second Life. We’ve played games with a whole bunch of avatars, running around, shooting in all sorts of game styles, and the performance of the server was exceptional. It was a lot of fun to create…. and to play!

Sex Rez Animations….. My Sex Rez animation line has been quite successful, and people are loving the animations! I get quite a few messages people asking me when I’m going to create some new animations so they can add them to their beds, and the answer is….. as soon as I get my fill of scripting again and I’m in the mood to go back to animating!

Old Inventory….. I’ve been looking through some of my old Dictatorshop inventory (simpler stuff that was created in the earlier days of the Dictatorshop (like the rocking horse, spreader bars, old gags, masks, etc) and piece by piece, when I get the inclination, I’m going through and updating the scripts and re-releasing these items. Some of the items, like the older gags I’m quite likely to release as freebies, since the builds are not on par to things I release in this day and age.

What’s on the Table…..

Well, I have several components of scripts for collars and new gags (including new builds for headgear, gags, masks, etc which have yet to see the light of day). These items, right now, are low priority for me, but within the next couple of months are quite likely to find their way to the frontline as I thin out my production line and feel the urge to fit new things into the pipe. But really, I work on these things when I feel in the mood to do so, and because of that they might hit the Dictatorshop in a week or even never!

Sad, sad, sad…..

Finally, awhile ago, it came to my attention a certain BDSM designer was being just ‘more than’ critical over me…. I certainly don’t mind a critic, it’s a good thing, but when you’re comparing your own *new* nearly 1000 L product to an *over-a-year-old* 100 L low-budget product, and going out of your way to degrade it and say how superior yours is and how terrible the other person’s is…. that’s hardly a fair comparison, is it? That would be kind of like Ferrari comparing their Ferrari F40s to Ford’s old Model Ts and saying how much better they are because the model T doesn’t have the features, function, or look of a Ferrari.

So, to this designer I say…. if you want a *fair* comparison….. try comparing yourself to somebody who actually released products in your field at the same time you did for the same price you did….. like RealRestraint, LuLu, or Amethyst.

Why on earth would you choose to compare yourself to one of the oldest products from the Dictatorshop which was *intentionally* created with the most basic of features and released for someone buying on a tight budget?

I think I know the answer….. I think everyone knows the answer to that, really.