Happy 7th Anniversary, ZoHa Islands!

ZoHa Islands Main Sales Office and Tier Payment Center

ZoHa Islands Main Sales Office and Tier Payment Center

We are excited to announce that 2014 is ZoHa Island’s seventh year of providing the best estate land in Second Life! In honor of that milestone, ZoHa Islands is throwing a party!

Save the date: Saturday, November 1, 2014 is when we are holding our big bash. Plans are still in the works, but it includes fun, dancing, and live music! We will try to hold it in the mid-late afternoon so as many as possible can attend. We are definitely cognizant of the wide variety of time zones represented in SL and in ZoHa Islands residents, so stay tuned to this blog as plans develop.

Zoha Islands General Pictures_006ZoHa Boa started out with just a few sims in 2006. As his reputation grew, so did the size of his landholdings. As the business continued to grow, ZoHa decided that he needed to hire an operations manager, and that is where Deuce Marjeta comes in. Deuce was hired in 2008 in the role of Operations Manager. Prior to that, he worked for Surreal Estates for four years, and owned and operated his own estate company, Massine Estates, for three years. At the time that Deuce was hired, ZoHa Islands had about 90 sims.

Fast forward to 2014, and ZoHa Islands is one of the top estates in Second Life, boasting 813 sims and going strong. We offer a variety of sim and parcel choices for just about every budget. You can have grass or sand, land on an adult sim, an entire homestead or a full-prim sim.

ZoHa Islands Business District Office

ZoHa Islands Business District Office

ZoHa Islands is one of the few estates to offer a Business District with a dedicated Business District Manager! If you place your business on a parcel in our Business District, you get not only an awesome piece of land that you can purchase and own with owner’s rights, including setting your land to group, putting your own music stream in, etc. you will get a full-service manager plus free advertising in the kiosks at the tier payment centers, and a link to your shop on our website! We have just about any size parcel for your business that would work for you. The pricing is reasonable, too.

ZoHa Islands Sandbox -- Grass Area

ZoHa Islands Sandbox — Grass Area


ZoHa Islands Sandbox Builder's Level

ZoHa Islands Sandbox Builder’s Level


One of the nicest perks of being a ZoHa Island resident, is access to the ZoHa Islands dedicated Sandbox. This is a quiet sandbox, and has several levels for serious builders. If you need a place to build without lag, and you’re tired of crowded sandboxes where you have to elbow people to find room, then the ZoHa Islands sandbox is the perfect place for you. If you simply need to room to rez out a build you purchased, then you can use it for that, too.

ZoHa Islands is the place to be for your home or your business. We thank our current residents and business owners from the bottom of our hearts. We couldn’t do it without you. We would like to celebrate our success with you on November 1st. Please save the date, more details will be forthcoming!

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers, ZI Social Media Manager

Virtual State Fair

One of the last bastions of summer is the State Fair. Just about every state in the US holds a State Fair of some kind, usually in the city where the state capitol is located. And just like real life, you can find a good old fashioned State Fair in SL, as well. The only thing missing from the experience is the crowds, the heat, and the smell of fair food — corn dogs, funnel cake, popcorn, cotton candy — Yumm!!

When I landed at the Virtual State Fair, I expected to hear calliope music, which is universally associated with fairs. Sadly, the only time I heard any sound was on the rides, or some of the exhibits had links you could click on for audio and/or visual information.

This fair is sponsored by Cooperative Extension, a research-based learning network who is celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the signing of the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, which officially created the national Cooperative Extension System. This celebration highlights Extension’s past and focuses on the contemporary application of Extension’s transformational educational programming into the future. And part of that transformational educational programming is their presence in Second Life.

This is another example of how education finds a home in Second Life. Take a look at Extension’s website, and visit the Virtual State Fair. There you can learn more about Cooperative Education in RL and SL, and also quite a lot about many things, from food borne illnesses, to the way a tornado works, to an entire exhibit about Andy Byrd, a quadraplegic organic farmer. Andy treated at the Shepherd Center, where an SL and RL friend of mine also treated for his spinal injury.

All in all, it was a lot of fun, with exhibits, rides, and just about everything else you would find at a fair (sans the rigged games). Go by and check it out; it’s a lot of fun and educational too.

Here are some pics from my visit:

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers, ZoHa Islands Social Media Manager

SL11B Snapshot Contest

SL11B Photo Contest

Coming up this Sunday, June 22nd, is Second Life’s 11th Birthday Celebration — commonly known as SL11B. I am excited to have applied to be part of the press corps so I can (hopefully) get a early view and will be able to report on what’s happening. Their preview is this Saturday, where invited members of the press are allowed access and offered a tour of the 10 sims that make up the SL11B celebration. I am hopeful that my application will be approved.

Meanwhile, I saw this on the SL blog that I thought was worth sharing. What a wonderful prize! $10,000 Linden Dollars for top photo.

Posted: June 16, 2014
“Starting today, you’re invited to take part in the Second Life: Celebrating Your Second Life Snapshot Contest, in honor of 11th Birthday of Second Life.

“Participation is easy – submit your celebratory snapshots from inworld to the contest page on our Official Second Life Facebook Page. Click the contest tab, review the contest information and rules and start sharing. This year you will be able to submit up to one snapshot a day for the duration of the contest. Full rules, submission and voting dates, and details are all on the Facebook page.

“Looking for some inspiration for pics? Then drop by Hairy Hippo Fun Land to grab your Limited Edition SL11B Robot Avatar. You can also get your free avatar off the Marketplace.

“Browse the SL11B category on the destination guide to see what the community has planned to mark the event inworld.

“Don’t forget that the Resident-driven Second Life 11th Birthday Community Celebration starts this coming Sunday the 22nd. Visit their website for the latest information.

“You only turn 11 once, and we can’t wait to see what kind of celebrations and fun you create and share!”

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers, ZoHa Islands Social Media Manager

I’m Mad for MadPea!

Editor’s Note: I have reported some mis-information. I received a message from the MadPea staff regarding this mystery event at their mainstore, which I incorrectly referred to as a “hunt.” And the helmet was apparently hidden in my hair, which made it look like Google glass. My apologies for mis-representing the MadPea event and the helmet at the end of the event. My only criticism of this mystery event was the lack of information, because usually on these mystery events we receive a NC with the backstory. Either I didn’t find it, or there wasn’t one.

At any event, I do not want to report wrong information, and I love MadPea and want to be sure that I am fair to them. They sent me a photo of what the helment is supposed to look like, and I found mine in my inventory and put it on, sans hair, and enlarged its size, and yes indeed, it does look like this! At any event, please forgive the inaccuracies contained herein and run don’t walk to MadPea’s latest mystery event!
~ Suzanne

MadPea helmet real one

Mad Peas Green Mire_001
As you know from previous postings, I am a huge MadPea Productions fan. I can barely contain my impatience while awaiting release of the UNIA game, coming sometime in the next few months. Meanwhile, they decided to shut down the MadPea City and have opened a MadPea Store sim, which of course has it’s own “between the games” little hunt called The Green Mire. If you’re jonesing for a MadPea fix, this will help get you over the hump!

First take the teleport to The Green Mire. I started out a little frustrated, because I “assumed” (wrongly, it turned out) that the starting point was the store, which is where you first land. This rather sneaky little trick makes people go to the store and search all around it, looking all around carefully trying to find the instructions, map, HUD….something….to get us started on The Green Mire hunt. So naturally all who land there (unless they’ve been reading blog posts and hints on the MadPea FB page) crawl all over the store searching for it.

Mad Peas Green Mire_003

Finally, out of frustration, I checked the FB page and saw a blog post which reveals that it all starts in this little fishing shack shown here.

Mad Peas Green Mire_006

From there, it was pure MadPea, with enough challenge that it was fun and exciting to figure it out, but easy enough (other than the beginning) that you didn’t hurt your brain trying to work on it. It’s a short hunt, and you come out of it with a pretty cool little headset that lets you speak with aliens (it does; really!) although it looks like they borrowed their design from Google glass, it’s pretty cool.

All in all, it was a fun and clever hunt, and now I’m sitting here impatiently awaiting the newest game to come, UNIA!

Here are some more pics. Visit and enjoy!

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Mad Peas Green Mire_005

Mad Peas Green Mire_007

Mad Peas Green Mire_008

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Mad Peas Green Mire_012

Mad Peas Green Mire_010

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I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers
ZoHa Islands Social Media Manager

MadPea Teaser…

Just a quick post before we begin the weekend!

In the MadPea group, I received a notification of something new coming this weekend, something to satisfy MadPea’ers while they await the much-anticipated UNIA. I don’t know what this “between the games” event will be, but I will keep you posted.

So excited!

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers
ZoHa Islands Social Media Manager

MadPea Productions Presents UNIA!

Squeee! The newest MadPea immersive experience is almost here!! This promises to be the biggest and best game on SL. I think MadPea has outdone themselves. MadPea has been working on this game for over a year. Read more about it on their website here.

MadPea Productions Unia game nearly died an early death, causing no small amount of panic among their fans (yours truly included!). Two months into the game development they lost their sponsor, and have had to find ways to keep funding the two islands they need for UNIA. Since the CEO is in Finland there is a 24% tax added to the cost of each full island. That is $70.80 USD in addition to the usual $295.00 tier fee so the monthly cost of the two MadPea islands is $731.50 USD.  After much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth, they made the difficult decision to hold a fundraiser to raise funds so the development of UNIA could continue. They raised the funds they needed through a GoFundMe site. Hallelujah!

Check out the UNIA Facebook page here and keep your eyes peeled to this blog. I will definitely be posting about UNIA!

Here’s a sneak preview. Looks like this is MadPea at it’s finest!

And check out this wonderful interview with Kiana Madpea, the inspiration behind the games! The video is from The Drax Files. There is a whole YouTube channel of  machinima by award-winning media maker Draxtor and home of “The Drax Files World Makers” series.

I remain respectfully yours,

~ Suzanne Piers, ZI Social Media Manager