Fantasy Faire 2024 in Second Life: Help With The Quest

Fantasy Faire 2024, Using a flashlight in Thunnus Bay

Even after years of doing the annual Fantasy Faire Quest and other hunts, there are still times I have problems finding everything. I confess that my secret talent seems to be 'ignoring the obvious', whether it is the unicorn in the garden or the glasses on my forehead.

Here are some you might try to make the Quest easier.

Join the **Fantasy Faire Fans** Group. It is fun to listen to and participate in the chat, and you can always ask for help.

Try to be as low lag as possible. While I love to see elaborate Faire costumes, I know that rendering them can slow things down so I try to dress conservatively. You don't really need to wear your toenail color Hud.

Set up folders in Inventory ahead of time and put items away while they are still listed as "Recent"

My folders are: "Fantasy Faire 2024" with two subfolders: "Quest Items" and "Shopping".  By the end of the Quest you will have dozens of prizes, so it is always a good idea, if you have the time and discipline, to open your prizes right away and send thank-you's to the makers and givers of things you especially like.*

Use the "Help" button on your Quest Hud. It has some good information. This year I learned that if the Hud suddenly doesn't show everything you've collected so far, the first thing you can do is reset it.

Can't find the Queen?  Try using your map to see if there is a cluster of green dots away from the main area. 

Listen to the Quest characters and to your companion animal.

It's OK to ask for a hint in chat. I asked for a hint about finding the last ingredient, and had over a half-dozen people send me clues via IM.

Do not curse the Quest Organizers**.  There have been times when I thought that the hints were misleading or mean, but I have come to realize that they are just coming from a different perspective. We all see things differently.  Be prepared to encounter a few glitches. Try to stay calm and enjoy everything you see along the way and be glad you're not one of the dedicated volunteers who had to set up the Quest.

Know what you are looking for.  In many SL hunts the hunt object is always a specific item, in this hunt the thing you are looking for comes in many shapes.  Once you've found the first item, examine it and its surroundings. Who made it? Who owns it? How big is it? How far was it from the spot the hint directed you to?  Was it named as a hunt object, or something like "I'm just a rock"?

Take time to let the hunt object materialize. Depending on lag time, it can sometimes take minutes for a hunt object to show up. If all else fails, go away and come back later. Also, sometimes objects won't show up until you are almost on top of them so don't rely on camming around from one corner of the Region.

If you can't see, lighten it up. This year some of the Regions were very dark. In the ink I saw a few avatars with their facelights turned up to "stun" and one resident who was wearing a large shining globe as an avatar. There are things you can do to improve your vision:

• Turn up your computer screen brightness
• Use 'Environment' settings and see if you can set the world to mid-day.
• Turn off "Use Shared Environment" and choose a brighter environment. In one Region, I had to change the water to "Lassies Clearwater" to keep from bumping into things. (Be sure to change settings back afterwards.)
• Temporarily de-render things like underbrush and pesky buildings.
• Use the 'search area' option if your viewer has it. If you click on an item on the list and select 'edit' it will show up better.

Thanks to Ryan Schultz for some great tips on his website.

If all else fails, during the last days of the Quest you may be able to purchase an "Express Quest" HUD for $L5000.

End of the Fantasy Faire Quest 2024

The Fantasy Faire Quest is always one of the best hunts in Second Life, and I would like to thank Aisling Sinclair, Terra Volitant, Judi Newell, Cayenne Republic and Bitsofthisandthat for their outstanding job this year.

Have fun!

*Says she, who just noticed she had a few items from SLB20 in her inventory, unopened.

**I apologize for saying "I hope that when she tiptoes past the bears, she is covered with honey and the bears are awake and hungry."

Store Hunts in Fantasy Faire 2023

There were several store hunts:

Khumbala had two stores with hunts:

View of Khumbala Stores from up in the treetops.

*KD* Design - Ethnic urban and more. 

Their hunt had you find five tiles to collect five gifts. They offered several nice jewelry pieces.

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Multifarious, Nocturne Skies, and Dalryample Designs:

These stores were very generous: Their hunt almost had as many prizes as the Fairelands Quest did!

The object of the hunt was to find ten lost chicks. Almost every chick carried multiple prizes, then there were gifts in the eggs near the nest at the front of the store, and then the chick themselves were prizes!

This chick didn't try to hide. I guess he wanted to join his friends for snacks.
(The carpet says "If life hands you lemons, make a cherry pie. Life'll be all ...what?"

This little chick is ready for a hike, after he gets that bee.

I had always wanted a battle flamingo, after seeing one used as decor. 
Now I have a whole army of battle flamingos, thanks to Multifarious.
(Nysaris shield was Faire gift from Harshlands,
 Paragon Sword from Eagle Design, 
Pose 'Reliance' from Gravity Poses,
 Flamingos (large and small) from Multifarious.

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OPERA:

Polenth Mushporium Quest in Opera. This hunt was to find lost seed packets which, put together in sequence, told an original story "Every Portal" by Polenth Blake (Polenth Yue)*. 

Polenth Yue's Mushporium at Fantasy Faire

The prizes were a wonderful collection of pots, plants, and seed packets, and, of course, the story. For everything Mushroom (or for clouds raining fish, were cockroaches, and everything else you can imagine) visit his Mushporium in Second Life. 

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WINDING VALLEY:

Shaman's Hut at Fantasy Faire quest was to find a different item every day. I only found two different prizes, but as I kept going back I was fascinated by the surprise eggs he makes.  I bought one of the Panjin tribute eggs he made - No. 2 - The Cranes. You click on the left crane to hear his song, you click on the rocks to see tiny paper cranes fly up, and you click on the tall red grass to get a small waterfall on the rock. The water ebbs and flows around the base of the rock.

The egg is a tribute to the Panjin area in Second Life, which in turn recreates the Red Beach in China. At the Red Beach a Sueda plant is able to grow in highly alkaline soil - it starts out light red and gets deep red as it matures. 

I went to visit the Panjin area in Overland Hills, and looked at photos of the Red Beach in China. The Second Life area beautifully reflects the RL area, and the surprise egg presents a nice combination of both. 

So much detail!

I was wondering if I could enlarge the items in the prize egg when I found that Shaman's Hut had donated three enlarged versions of these scenes as quest prizes! 

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VRaze the Bar Quest at Fantasy Faire was a room-by-room hunt. The prizes were household items.

The first puzzle had you fill in the blank to form words that opened the chest for the prize. 

(I didn't finish all these hunts, but I enjoyed trying to figure out how things work. I really appreciate all the exhibitors who furnished hunts and prizes.)

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*I fought auto-correct continuously in order to keep "Polenth Yue" from becoming "Polenta Due", so I was glad to hear that the inventor of auto correct had passed away - may he restaurant in peace.

Hunts in Second Life Can Be Fun and Rewarding

I love participating in Second Life hunts. Not only can I add free or low-cost items to my inventory, I get to visit places I might never have discovered. I also enjoy the hunt itself - figuring out the clues and finding the hunt objects.

How to hunt:

First: Pick a hunt - there are a large variety of hunts, there is something for almost everyone. 

Where to find a hunt:

Seraphim: Hunts, Games, and Giveaways. 

Second Life Syndicate:

• Grid Hunts - Hunts that take place in more than one sim or region,
• Sim Hunts - Hunts that take place only in one sim or region, 
• Store Hunts - Hunts that take place only in one store. 

Other Places:

• Hunt SL.com
• SL Hunts They have an inworld location, listed on the Destination Guide, that is sparse right no
• Hunts for Kenya - has a sign board for hunts they are participating in.

Second: Try to make your avatar as lag-free as possible. You do not need elaborate outfits or non-hunt related HUDs to hunt.

Hunt Object Display at Kiyomizu Mall

Third: Wherever applicable:

• Pay the entry fee, which can range from free, to several hundred Linden*
• Join the hunt group, they can often help by giving additional hints when you are stumped
• Put on the HUD, and learn to use it
• Bookmark the hunt website so you will be notified when hunt sites may be added or dropped

Fourth: Read the hunt instructions.

VENTURE FORTH!

Fifth: After you've arrived at a location, move away from the entry point and wait for everything to rez.

Sixth: Look at the hunt poster so you can see if there is a new hint, and so you know what to look for. Move around rather than just using your camera to look around.  Often, hunt items may not show up until you are quite close.

Seventh: Resist the impulse to cheat. 

• Twisted Hunts is very clear about what is considered cheating, whilst at the same time telling you about cheating tactics that you might not have considered.
• You can buy gadgets on the Marketplace that help you find hunt items, but you will be missing out on the the satisfaction of having found the object. The folks who provide prizes and who put together the hunts have put  in a lot of effort.**

Eighth: Pace yourself. Some hunts last for weeks, others are only days' long. Don't try to complete a hunt with 70 locations in one day.

Ninth:  Open your prizes and send thank-you notes to places that have given prizes you especially like,  or who have set up interesting puzzles or provided beautiful locations. Never ever complain, although you can politely let the hunt organizer know if there is a major flaw with a gift.

A Few of the Hunts I Have Enjoyed

Historical Hunts sponsors three or four games a year, each lasting several weeks.  The prize object folder includes the landmark for the next location. There is also a list of merchants given to the group and on the website.  One hunt had 73 merchant locations. There is a main shopping area at the beginning, but the larger hunt is grid-wide.  There is usually at least one mini-hunt. There is no 'grand prize' for finding all the hunt items.

The Twisted Hunt - Considered one of the most difficult hunts, because each site has multiple duplicate hunt objects, and they are deviously placed. One hunt had 40 merchants participating.  You have to find all the prize objects to access the grand prize (I never have).

Fantasy Faire -  There is a Story Quest at this annual Spring Event. The next Fantasy Faire will be April 21st to May 8th, 2022 and the first part of the Quest starts April 25th.  Quest HUDs are for sale, and for an extra fee you can get a deluxe package with costumes specially designed for the event. In previous years there were also mini-hunts in different regions. Rather than provide prizes at each point in the story, you complete parts of the story and solve puzzles. When you complete the main Quest there are a pile of prizes available from almost every merchant who participated in Fantasy Faire. (See my previous blog entry. )

Other resources I used for this article:

Ryan Schulz.

The Twisted Hunt.

Fabulously Free in Second Life

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* Do not spend a lot of money on hunts until you are sure it is worth it  - For example - Mad Pea usually has very good hunts, but their recent  Easter Egg Farm Hunt HUD cost 500L and each day you had to smash a lot of eggs, in one central location, for a chance to find one prize and one 'special key'. The prizes were nice, but Easter Bunny themed, so not much use except decoration or if you are a rabid Easter Bunny fan. Also, as I found during a previous game, if you miss a day you can't go back and find that prize and you couldn't get all the 'special' keys to combine for the grand prize.

**(Some stores cheat when they place the hunt object. I've found hunt objects attached to a moving object, on a platform 2000 meters over the hunt area, or so close to a 'for sale' item that my fumble fingers actually bought a stupid statue.  I have complained about this practice (not about the prizes) and stopped going to those stores.)