Yamato

Yamato/Shangri-La as it stands today.

The Yamato project was originaly proposed to the community on 03/07/03 by Yuniq Epoch. After well recieved feedback a group was put together and began working on building objects for the community. On 03/19/03 Yuniq posts on the forums a much longer and detailed Oriental Community Proposal in which she paints a vivid and beautifull picture of a lovely Japanese community set in medieval/mythological Japan, taken from the post:

"Community Introduction

Explore a strange new world within Second Life, untouched by the hands of time and spiced with a decidedly Eastern flavor. Welcome to our world, a world of honorable samurai, shadowy ninjas, and a unique culture, architecture, and artwork that you'll be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. This mystical section of SL is not only ancient, but mythological. You'll hear all sorts of legends of Japanese, Chinese, and other Oriental origin. You'll see martial artists duel in the Lotus Blade tournament, and explore the dangers surrounding this small village. But be warned; once you enter, you may not wish to return to your prior Second Life...

Community Description

Yamato intends to recreate a small Oriental village in a medieval/mythological style. The highlight of the community will the the tall pagoda standing at the height of the village, with its younger twin brothers beside it. A beautiful garden in front of the buildings leads to the Lotus Blade tournament grounds, where people come from the worlds around to compete for glory and honor. You'll be able to observe the houses of our noble samurai, and explore the wonders of our small forested area. The goal of Yamato is to provide a visual experience found nowhere else in Second Life."

Around this time the Lindens announced they would support some selected Themed Community projects and were taking in proposals to select from. The above mentioned post by Yuniq was part of the Yamato projects proposal to be one of these communities supported.

On 03/20/03 Ryan Linden announced the five selected communities that would get a chance to build their project. The support the Lindens gave was mostly of land wise, providing new sims with two projects each being in one of the sims, Lindens controled most of the land in the sims to prevent others from moving in and disrupting any of the projects. Yamato was setup to be on the West side of Dore, which was shared with DarkWood set on the North side of Dore.

The last forum entry found about the Yamato project is on 03/23/03 by Yuniq Epoch (since deleted), in it she announces a group meeting to discuss issues such as a name for the villiage, events, setup, and the usual group discussions. Going by posts after this made by other residents it seems the villiage's chosen name was Shangri-La, but was sometimes also referred to as "the Yamato villiage" or simply Yamato.

The events there-after are mostly unknown, for a time it seems the project is alive and well, however there are not any posts that explain why the project seemed to stop.

On 06/07/03 Kenny Metalhead makes a post proposing Shangri-La 2.0 which would be a rebuilt community slightly more true to Yuniq's original concept. He outlined some great ideas in a PDF with easy references and pictures for anyone interisted in helping with his project (the PDF can be found here). Sadly this is the only mentioning of this project that has been found, and there were no response posts to his original post (which was one of his only posts).

On 07/19/03 Harald Nomad posts that he noticed parts of Shangri-La had gone public (it is suspected both land and objects), he says he secured what he could and informed the Lindens who then purchased the land. Unfortunately it seems some objects were deleted within this time and various litter was left around. Harald and others then took the job up to clean up and replace whatever objects they could. Sadly it seems this was an ever ongoing struggle as Shangri-La being close to the Welcome Area was an open target for newbie litter left carelessly as well as objects dissapearing. Signs were made to ask people not to litter and about the fixing of the villiage, these signs seemed slightly effective.

After sometime of this battle to keep Shangri-La from going into complete chaos it was rumored that the Lindens were planning to delete the area altogether. Thankfully this was either false or a better idea was put into place as Shangri-La became home to Orientation Stations for newbies instead. The stations are re-creations of the stations found on the Orientation Islands without the money payments. Some objects such as a boat, a sword, and some other random objects were removed and others such as flooring and a wall of one of the smaller pagoda's is still missing.

So while Shangri-La has not been completely restored, it atleast is being put to good use and large parts of it still remain. If you decide to check it out, be sure to look in the pagoda's as some beautifull object work and artwork are located in them.

Strife Onizuka bought the boat that was docked and part of the villiage, it happened to be for sale (or a copy of it was purchased). It's a well built boat and the script that runs it still works.

Images

An early example of a pagoda for Yamato.

The original planned layout of Yamato.

Related links

Forum Link - Yuniq Epoch posts first proposal for a Japanese Themed Community.

Forum Link - Yuniq posts large detailed proposal (suspectedly for the Linden sponsorship, last minute entry).

Forum Link - Ryan Linden posts selected projects for Themed Community sponsorship.

Forum Link (Broken) - Yuniq makes last found Yamato post for a group meeting (lost or deleted from forum).

Forum Link - Haney Linden posts about Themed Community sims being brought online.

Forum Link - Kenny Metalhead posts about starting a new Shangri-La project.

Kenny's PDF - PDF proposal made by Kenny Metalhead for Shangri-La v2.

Forum Link - Harald Nomad posts about Shangri-La going public and trying to restore it.