Horizons Experience

The Horizons Experience

This is a five-part series of quests, that take you through some of the most treacherous terrain in Second Life. Recover lost or stolen artifacts, battle an army of killer robots, and outwit the security defenses of an almost impregnable command center, all while dodging natural perils and fiendish traps.

Anyone may enjoy the Horizons Experience. You do not need to live in one of the Horizons residential regions. The Experience has an Adult rating, however, so you do need to have an Adult maturity rating.

If you choose to, you may explore the quest regions without competing for a reward, as an Explorer. Explorers still need to watch out for the deadly perils, but they may wander -- and even fly! -- in many parts of the experience.

If you do dare to try the quests as a Player, though, you need to wear a game HUD and race against the clock to overcome incredible odds, rescue Tyrah from Dr. Talpa’s evil clutches, and receive fabulous rewards!

Tip: You can tell Players from Explorers by looking for the tiny dot that is hovering over their heads. A Player has an orange dot; an Explorer has a blue dot.

Background Story

In PaleoQuest, a valiant group of Second Life Residents assisted Magellan Linden in stopping Dr. Talpa from destroying the grid with his time portal experiments. Since then, all has been quiet, but we all know how idle claws are the devil’s workshop. Magellan started hearing disturbing reports that Dr. Talpa was able to obtain technology from the future through one of his portals before it was closed. More specifically, robotic technology...

Magellan asked Tyrah to infiltrate the mad scientist mole’s lair and discover just what evil technological abominations he was constructing. However, this being a LDPW experience backstory, it was not long before she was captured. She is now being held prisoner in his command center.

How was Tyrah captured? What fiendish, unknown peril did she fall prey to? What dastardly fate does Dr. Talpa have in mind for her now? We know very little. Most people who have tried to find the answers have never returned to tell us. Lack of knowledge has never kept Magellan from leaping into the abyss of fate, however, along with any brave adventurers he can enlist (for a price).

In true form, Magellan is asking once more for residents to come to his aid in rescuing Tyrah from Dr. Talpa’s clutches. But this time we must hurry! Before we lost contact with Tyrah she said Dr. Talpa was looking for a subject on which to test cybernetic technology! We suspect if we don’t rescue her soon, Tyrah will have her mind erased and be transformed into a cyborg minion of the sociopathic mole madman!

To save her you must journey through 5 areas. Each one will be a challenge, and you will be racing against the clock! Can you save Tyrah in time? Will Dr Talpa finally succeed in ruling the grid? Will Magellan pay his bar tab? It’s all up to you!!!*

*(Except for that part about the bar tab. We all know that will never happen.)

When you land at Homebase, the Game HUD will attach and a pop up menu will appear. If you want to play the game select the Player option. Or, if you do not want to play, select the Explorer option and feel free to explore the experience at your leisure (and only a little life-threatening risk).

Recommended Game Settings

For the best possible experience we recommend that you use the following preference settings:

Turn on the region Windlight settings. To do this go to World > Sun > Use Region Settings.
We recommend a minimum draw distance of 256 meters. To do this go to Me > Preferences > Graphics, and set your draw distance to 256 meters or higher.
Turn on Show Me in mouselook. Go to Me > Preferences > Move & View and tick the box that says “Show me in Mouselook”.

Each of the experience regions has a continuous audio stream. If you are having trouble hearing it:

Be sure that you have streaming music enabled in Preferences > Sound & Media.
Click the musical note in the upper right corner of your viewer screen to start the stream.
Wait for the stream to download to your viewer. (This may take as much as a minute.)
Check the volume slider in your Master Sound Control panel.

HUD Legend

Homebase

[Horizons Homebase] is your starting point. Here you will find Tutorial and Background videos that describe the quests and tell you about the story behind the challenge you are about to take on. Here also are portals that can take you to the start of each quest and the Prize Room where you go to claim your reward when you have reached the end and freed Tyrah.

Portal Room

Here you can use a portal to take you to the next quest that you are ready for. Only Players may use the portals (Explorers have to walk or fly), and you may only use a portal to reach a quest if you have finished the ones before it.

Prize Room

Here you can collect your reward for successfully completing all the quests in consecutive order. Payout stations on the right offer a Linden Dollar reward. Those on the left offer one of the many common, rare, and ultra-rare prizes designed exclusively for Players of this experience. You may select either a Linden Dollar reward or a fabulous prize, but not both.

Tunnel

Enter the tunnel to begin your adventure!

Quest Elements

The following components define the start, finish, and intermediate steps of the quests.

Quest Info Kiosk

At the start of each quest there is a Quest Info Kiosk that hands out a notecard and plays a message with the quest instructions.

HUD Kiosk

Click on a HUD Kiosk to get a new HUD if you have lost your previous HUD, or if you have arrived at the quest as an Explorer and have decided to play through it as a Player. Remember, though, that you have to play the quests in order, so the kiosk will not give you a HUD unless you have completed the previous quests.

Start Gate

To begin a quest, walk through its start gate. The timer on your HUD starts immediately. In some quests, the gate will attach a special mini HUD or a weapon. If you walk back through the start gate, your timer will stop and you will lose any progress that you have made during the quest so far. If you were given a weapon or an extra mini HUD during the quest, they will disappear too. You will need to re-enter and start the quest again.

Quest HUD Timer

Each quest is on a timer.
You have to complete each quest within that time.
If you die, the timer on the HUD is still running and you lose time on the quest timer.
If the time runs out before you complete the quest, you have to start that quest again.
If you leave the region or walk back through its start gate, the clock will reset to zero.

Access Terminal

At the end of each quest you have to activate an access terminal to be able to proceed to the next quest. The access terminal verifies that you have finished the quest within the time limit and it updates your HUD.

Resurrection Circle

If you are killed by a peril or gunned down by a killer robot, or if you are torn limb from limb by Dr. Talpa’s pet swamp monster, Fluffy, this is where you will end up. You will not lose anything that you have collected, but you will lose valuable time.

Tips and Tricks

Only tap jump once to avoid flying.
Use Ctrl + R to run.
Don’t detach your HUD. If you do, any mini HUD or weapon you have will disappear, and you will not be able to complete the quest.

Rules

No flying, if you are a Player. If you fly you will be returned to the point where you started flying, but you will lose time on your quest timer.
Explorers may fly, but may not fly vehicles below an altitude of 50m. If you fly a vehicle below that altitude or if you land anywhere, you will be unseated and your aircraft will be returned.
No teleporting to any location in the quest regions. If you teleport as a Player, you will be sent to the region’s Resurrection Circle. If you teleport as an Explorer, you will be sent to the Homebase region.
No sitting, except in the Homebase region.
No speeding. Do not go faster than the standard run speed.
No cheat or griefing objects allowed.

We hope that you enjoy this experience. The most important rule is to have fun!