Kabalyero.com
Kabalyero is an avid online gamer from the Philippines.

RPG Empires in Second Life is composed of The Roman Empire, The Spartan Empire, Samurai Japan, Medieval England (still being built) and its accompanying surrounding regions. If I counted correctly, it is made up of 12 regions all dedicated to Role Playing.

New to RPG Empires is the opening of its own Orientation Island. This island is all about helping newcomers understand what RPG Empires is all about. Information about the current empires can be obtained here and there are friendly volunteers who will assist and help anyone who needs it. So, don’t hesitate to ask them any questions about RPG Empires.

(RPG Empires Orientation Island)

(The Landing Point)

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One definition of God is, “the creator of all things or the creator of the Universe”. In Second Life, I guess we can call someone who created his own universe (multiple regions) a God, right? Well, at least that’s how I would like to term it in this post.

A few days ago, the creator and owner of the following regions; The Roman Empire, The Spartan Empire and Samurai Japan (there are others more); mikeD Streeter, sent me an unexpected message. In his message, he was asking me if I still need land. It was very unexpected indeed.

When I got the message, I immediately logged in to my account (Kabalyero Kidd) and contacted him in-world. As it turned out, he offered me a piece of land in one of the region he owns and, of course, I happily and thankfully accepted his very generous offer.

The land was located at his Animate Me Poseballs region and it was 3536 sqm. in size. It’s a very large piece of land and he told me that I can do anything with it. The only restrictions where (from what I remember):

• no malls
• no campers
• nothing that will lag or crash the region (which, of course, I will never do)

You don’t know how excited I was. In fact, I was so excited that I spent the entire day just searching for items to place on that land. I’ve always wanted to have my own castle and now I can with this very large piece of land.

[...continue reading Gift from a God!]

Recently, Earn2Life launched there very first Photo Contest in Second Life entitled “Live Nature of the Digital World.” The contest is open to all Earn2Life members so if you are not yet a member of Earn2Life then now is a good time to join.

The contest will run from May 1, 2008 to June 15, 2008 but entries will only be accepted from May 1, 2008 to May 15, 2008. So, you still have a few more days to take some photos and enter the contest.

Below is my entry!

This photo was taken at Cybertopia Zoo.

[...continue reading Join Earn2Life’s Photo Contest]

The entire Roman Empire and neighboring regions mourn the death of one of its greatest emperor, his Imperial Majesty Enrich Decimus Augustus Caesar.

From what I gathered, the great Emperor led the great Roman Army in a massive attack of Nordhaven and in the battle that followed, a Nord blade took down the Emperor of Rome.

It was also brought to my attention that the Emperor was sick due to poisoning. Apparently, during their invasion of Egypt to rescue the Emperor’s brother, Prince Skyyy, a Nord Mercenary appeared from nowhere and caught the mighty Emperor with a poison arrow on his back. The mercenary was caught but his majesty didn’t recover quickly. He didn’t die but he suffered greatly

At the battle in Nordhaven, the Emperor of Rome refused to surrender thus causing him his life. He sacrificed his own life in honor of The Roman Empire.

The fallen Emperor was immediately taken to the Temple of Vesta but it was already too late. Not even the Gods were able to bring the Emperor back to life.

On the same day, a new Emperor was declared. DonPelayo Cortez, brother to his majesty, was announced as the Roman Empire’s newest Emperor.

This is the on-going storyline in The Roman Empire. The Roman Empire region is a very active Role Play region in Second Life. Everyone is encouraged to participate in any of the on-going storylines.

[...continue reading The Emperor of the Roman Empire Region, DEAD!]

Here is another big bucks of a contest from Koinup but this time they’re looking for Second Life photos captured in Windlight.

For those who still doesn’t know or who are still using an old viewer, the latest Second Life viewer now comes with Windlight. Yes, it’s no longer in First Look. It is now standard to the current and future viewers. I first learned about this from Shay Daviau of Samurai Japan. You see, I’m one of those who doesn’t like to update their viewers often. LOL!

Back to the contest, the contest started last April 18, 2008 and will end on May 7, 2008 (which is tomorrow for me). Yes, I’m also surprised that I didn’t learn about it sooner but still I was able to submit a couple of entries. Well, actually you are allowed to submit two entries but each must be shot in a different region and must use a different Windlight setting.

Below are my entries:

[...continue reading 20,000L$ Windlight Contest]

Yesterday, I found my little and very humble place in Second Life GONE! For no apparent reason (if there was any then I surely didn’t know about it), all my objects were returned to me. I asked Richard Palace about it by sending him an instant message which, unfortunately, he did not receive but, at least, now he knows about it.

Anyway, complaining (I’m not really complaining) about it will not return my objects back to their original places, so I spent a few hours today returning (almost) everything back to where they were before. Well, not exactly to where they were. You see, I kinda did a little rearranging of the place and I also removed some objects which I don’t really need and brought back the nature look.

Before, my place was located 500 meters above the ground and looked like a huge floating capsule made of rock.

Now, it looks like a floating island.

Currently, the size of the land I’m renting is only 512 sqm. Once, the land I was renting at Scaramanga grew to a total of 1,536 sqm. but I had to reduce it back to 512 sqm when First Opinions Panel (my biggest Linden Dollar earning machine) stopped their referral program. I used to earn around 10,000 to 20,000 L$ a month in Second Life but that greatly dropped when First Opinions Panel stopped paying for referrals. It’s not that big but for me, it’s more than enough to keep my place and to buy my avatars a few items.

[...continue reading My Place In Second Life Is Back!]

I regularly login to my Second Life account to check my place at Scaramanga which I rent from Richard Palace of Palace Lands. Today, I logged in only to find my place GONE!

Yes, my place was gone, 3 Stars and a Sun was nowhere to be seen! I was greeted by a long list of messages telling me that my objects were returned to me. I was very surprised at what happened. I’m also confused because I have not received any messages from Richard Palace to why my objects were returned to me.

There I was standing on an empty land. I even checked the sky above me just to see if my place was there but it was not. I thought maybe my rent has expired but my rental box still have 22 days in it. I also sent an instant message to Richard Palace asking him what happened but he was not online at that time.

[...continue reading My Place, GONE!]

Today I visited Sparta at The Spartan Empire sim. The sim is also owned by mikeD Streeter who is also the owner of The Roman Empire. The Spartan Empire sim is home to Sparta and Mythology but for this post I will be going through Sparta only.

I’ve heard about Sparta some days ago but I was too busy with real life to check it out until now. I teleported to Sparta using a landmark which I got from a group notice. The landing point was just outside the city. You won’t miss the entrance because there’s an image with a photo of a Spartan from the movie 300 just beside it.

The first area that you will visit is the Market. Vendor spaces lined the streets of Sparta. Some of the vendor spaces were already filled, at least it look that way. If you are interested in placing a vendor at Sparta then just send an instant message to mikeD Streeter.

Not far away from where I am was the Arena. The arena in Sparta wasn’t as big and magnificent as the arena at The Roman Empire. There, I met some residents like Gatsby Clawtooth who was kind enough to offer a tour of the place but I kinda prefer to look around the place myself.

[...continue reading Sparta @ The Spartan Empire]

How much money will you spend on a virtual item just to achieve “absolute power”?

I try to visit Khan Online Philippine’s official board everyday to check what’s happening in the community. Khan Online’s community is composed of very loyal Khanatics that has stayed on with the game since open beta. In my visit, I would click on “View New Posts” and start my browsing from there. Every time I go through that list of new posts, a thread or topic from the marketplace forum will always grab my attention and those are threads that sell in-game accounts and/or items for real life cash (pesos).

One time, I saw a thread at the marketplace forum with a title that says something like “selling a level 140 set for Mickos”. A mobile phone number was posted and out of curiosity I sent a text message to the seller offering 1,500 PHP for it. The almost instant reply kind of surprised me. I was not expecting the vendor to reply immediately. The price given to me was 6,000 pesos for the set. I was surprised at the amount. I never realized that an “armor set” in Khan Online would cost that much.

I tried contacting a few other vendors of in-game items through texting but I never received a reply. Well, I did receive one reply but he said he was buying not selling.

What I did is just out of curiosity. A lot of these offers were being posted on the marketplace forum everyday and since I don’t know how much these items are worth in real cash (pesos), as an experiment, I decided to send a text message to one vendor to find out and find out I did.

Who would have thought that a virtual item or in this case an “armor set” in Khan Online Philippines would cost or worth that much? I thought that it would only cost a few pesos but I was wrong and I believe that players are buying these items because if not then these type of trading would have died a long time ago.

Almost everyday, you will see at least 1 of these illegal offers posted at the marketplace forum. Although the moderators are quick in closing illegal trade threads and banning forum accounts yet it doesn’t seems to discourage these players from posting these kinds of offers. Forum account banning is not enough to neither discourage nor stop these black-market/illegal traders from posting their offers because they’ll just create new forum accounts and continue on posting until their items are sold. Sad but true!

Black-market trading of virtual/in-game items isn’t new. In fact, there are many websites that deal with this type of trading and it is present in almost all MMOs specially the more popular ones like WOW, Everquest, Lineage, Guild Wars, etc. In Philippine published games, I’ve seen it everywhere not only in Khan Online. It’s big business.

[...continue reading The Price of Absolute Power]

This week, I had the chance to visit mikeD Streeter’s latest Role Play region/sim in Second Life, the land called Samurai Japan. Obviously, Samurai Japan is a region greatly inspired by ancient Japan, although, I’m not particularly sure what time period was it actually based on but I can safely say that it’s based on a  very old Japan. You know, that period in time when Samurais and Ninjas exist, where people live and die by the sword and where code and honor is above everything else.

I learned about Samurai Japan from a group announcement sent through The Roman Empire group (SL Roman Empire) which is also a owned by mikeD Streeter. The group notice contained a landmark that took me to Samurai Japan.

When I got there, I immediately started my visit by looking around the place and while I was checking out the docks, mikeD Streeter kinda surprised me with an instant message. I was surprised because I didn’t realize he was anywhere near the place. If he was then he must be invisible because I didn’t see or notice him there.

He told me some interesting information about the docks like it’s not just for display. People can rez ships or boats and sail around the islands which is cool. Sailing around them is possible because mikeD has like multiple sims all joined together which provided enough space to actually sail around the various regions and see the different sights.

[...continue reading The Land Called Samurai Japan]