The Hideaway is a recent addition to SL. It is a place to meet up anonymously and hook up. Think about being anonymous in SL… really!?! How does one do that? Caroline and crew found a way.
If you haven’t found Caroline Takeda’s Second Life Adventures and the Second Life Escorts sites (both NSFW URLs) and are into sex… then you are missing out. Caroline is always working on ways to make a buck starting sex businesses. Sex sells… don’t you know? And the articles there while sometimes educational are almost always titillating.
One of the more recent efforts is her Secret Hideaway. She has written about it (here and here) in her blogs. Alas I only occasionally check in on her blogs. So, I hadn’t noticed the club opening until Caroline sent me an invitation to get a free mask. They normally cost a thousand Linden. O.O So, yeah, I thought I better get my little tush down there and get one. I did.
If it is about new features, or something, in SL I haven’t seen in SL then I’m interested. But a thousand Linden, that would have put me off. I won’t spend L$200 without a demo first. But free… I’m all in.
This anonymous thing had me curious how will they do that? Plus, the place is secret and you supposedly can’t find it without the mask.
In SL your RL ID is confidential. But your avatar’s ID is way public, like living under the UK cameras. But they did find a near-perfect way to hide your identity while in the club. Surprising. It works.
I used to scout enemy bases in NOR (combat/sex RP). I am pretty good at getting into places I’m not supposed to be in. So, claiming it couldn’t be found was a challenge. But so far, it has been difficult enough I gave up.
You get the mask at the SLA Media Company office (URL to maps). It looks like an Eyes Wide Shut mask. It fits my face well. Hmmm… does that mean… never mind. For it to work and take you to the Hideaway you must have an RLV enabled viewer. That means just about any viewer other than the default Linden viewer. Just remember to enable RLV. The default for some is disabled and others enabled.
While at office subscribe to their notification system jus to the right of the vendor. It will alert you when someone enters the club and tell you how many people are there.
When you put on the mask a popup asks you if you want to teleport to the Secret Place. Answer yes and poof you teleport. Answer no and the mask comes off. And don’t buy the mask and immediately put it on and try to teleport from the vendor location. If things mess up, you’ll get the too “close to TP” warning. Besides. You aren’t likely dressed for the occasion yet.
Plus, if it messes up it will make problems for you. The stuff that allows you to be anonymous is RLV stuff. When you try to TP from the office and things mess up, you don’t teleport but the RLV limits kick in and you can’t teleport anywhere. Then you can’t take the mask off. You’re screwed and you haven’t even gotten near a bed. Clicking the mask again repeats the loop ending in an error message.
You can’t open the map or see region names in the address bar. So, you cannot TP via map. You can walk out of the region and then click the mask. It will teleport back into the office near the vendor. I think it thinks it is teleporting you to your starting place, which it is you just didn’t get started. In a couple of seconds, the dialog will ask if you want to teleport to the Secret Place. This time it should work. You are out of the error loop.
What happened to me to get me in the loop is my mouse needs to be replaced. I got in the can’t-do-crap situation because my mouse double clicked when I intended a single click… wasn’t me, honest. My mouse is getting old and feeble. It fast-double clicked sending me to the Hideaway but I never made it because the second unintended click tried to TP me the starting place before I left.
The dress code is erotic orgy attire… For me that is black heels, black sexy panties, brackets, necklace, earrings, mask, and hair up. Once there you’ll start to notice the RLV limits kicking in. If you look in your people panel, you’ll find nearby people are anonymous. No names. You’ll see your name tag. But you won’t see other people’s name tags. Wow. If you right-click on people, you can’t see their profile. The cursor-hover-over-avatar won’t show you their name. You can’t click on them and IM them. You must talk in local chat.
You can IM friends outside the Hideaway and they you.
You can’t open maps, world or mini. You can’t TP people in. But I think they can ask to TP in. But I suspect the region will kick them out if they do not have a mask on. Like RL is soon to be.
I read that if you take your mask off, you get TP’d out. But I couldn’t take the mask off while in the Hideaway. I was RLV blocked from detaching.
It is all pretty neat and they have done an amazing job of keeping you anonymous. It isn’t perfect. HUDs will mess up and give you people’s names. If you don’t say anything no one but you will know. Be careful if you wear a HUD and get a name. Revealing that can cause a lot of drama and hurt feelings. I take it as a form of outing a person… doxing… something bullies and haters do.
Doing RP without names is different. As more people come in and talk in anonymous local chat things get confusing. But it is fun to hear people’s sex talk… OMG! Did she really ask him to… The times I’ve been there, small crowds turned into an orgy. Lots of voyeurism going on too. Gets warm in there.
Voyeurs are often shy, IMO. So, if you’re into it, invite them in.
They have good sex furniture. But watch out. When I was there the upstairs Smash Couch was v1.2 not the newer v2.1. Otherwise, all is good. There is a 4-person bed upstairs. The bathroom has an It’s-Not-Mine shower.
Like a lot of new sex places, there aren’t many people there. Caroline and company have tackled that. At the vendor location for the mask, you can join a subscriber to be notified when someone is in the Hideaway. That works well. But, you may have to wait for people to react, dress, and TP in.
They also plan events. There is a weekly event on Saturday.
When you arrive at the Hideaway and find you are alone, give it five or 10 minutes or so. When you arrive, other subscribed members get a notice someone is there.
To leave the Hideaway, click the mask. It will TP you back to where you were when you clicked to go to the Hideaway. And the mask will poof back into inventory… well some times… other times it asks if you want to go to The Secret Place again. If does, answer No and the mask will detach.
Since this is about one of Caroline’s places, I decided to write up my adventure in the club, sort of like she does with her adventures. The link is: The Hideaway – Totally Not Safe For Work. (Links to PDF)
This story is copyrighted. While you are welcome to a copy, I would appreciate it if you did not pass the PDF file around. If you want to share, please pass a link to this page. – Thanks Nal