The East side of Rivet Town, looking North on the main promanade
(Ed. Note: Rivet Town was one of the more prominent casualties of the Steamlands when it dissapated in mid-2009. Noted for its very impressive Steampunk construction, it was a visual gem during its time in Second Life. I've reposted the "initial" visit I logged when it first opened, along with a brief video piece made at the time, just below.)
During an afternoon constitutional in the Palisade, I had the fortune to meet a Miss Lurra, a Scandinavian Steampunk adherent who happened to be visiting New Babbage. After a fairly lengthy conversation, she recommend a new Steampunk build with an interesting twist – it was to be exclusively designed for Steampunk RP. An intriguing concept, one of the last things she mentioned was to ride the teacups when I arrived. I raised an eyebrow at the concept, but tp’ed nonetheless to … Rivet Town.
Entrance to the Rivet Beach Boardwalk (Rivet Town West)
The Teacup ride on the Boardwalk (and yes, it is operational!)
Rivet Town consists of three connected sims. The main juncture tp point is Rivet Town West, the board walk / beach / amusement center sim. To the north, just across the bridge, is Rivet Town North, which appears to be the "rougher" part of Rivet Town (including the docks on the Eastern side. Also, storefronts and/or artist stalls are available for a quite reasonable price in this area.
A distant view of the Ferris wheel and the beach house
Rivet Town East is the affluent portion of the sim, with a church, police station, and other genteel aspects of the Victorian era. Additionally, the large portion of the sim’s stores reside here, with some enterprises already in operation.
Rivet Town East, the upscale downtown area, currently home to numerous merchants
An impressive facet of the sim is the building appears to be a one-woman endeavor. Miss Grace Loundon has constructed the vast majority of the sims herself, and has shown not only a talent for building, but for doing quite a good job of capturing the disparate atmosphere of the Victorian age, as represented by the three existing sims.
The dangerous Rivet Town North, with darkened streets and mysterious alleys
I attempted to learn more about the Steampunk RP aspect of Rivet Town, especially since the New Babbage RP has grown quite dramatically during the past month. Unfortunately, the bulk of the information was via the group notices, which stated that the sim is expected to be officially open sometime nearing the end of July.
The Docks of North Rivet Town during the day - troubled waters abound here!
Rivet Town is a beautiful build, and a visit to any of the three sims would be worth the effort. As to the RP… I am keeping tabs on its development, but if the build is representative of the RP plans, a richness of Steampunk excitement, intrigue, and Victorian indulgence appears to be in-store for this Steampunk sim.
To visit Rivet Town, please follow this SLurl...
http://slurl.com/secondlife/rivet%20town%20west/40/124/25/
(Ed. Note #2 - A number of theories debated the demise of Rivet Town, many of them hovering around the viability of a sim's existence based primarily upon role play events. The below link hosted a lively discussion regarding the sim, until the next to last comment by the sim's builder - which was a bit unexpected by some. Nonetheless - its a good read, located here: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/02/rivet-town-to-close-sign-of-steampunk-plateau-in-second-life.html
For more details regarding Rivet Town, please do consider...
The Steampunk Tribune's piece on the closing of Rivet Town
Miss E. Laval's review of Rivet Town's very well attended Inventor's Expo
... followed by the Tribune's review of the event
Best of Second Life Review of Rivet Town )
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