History of the C:SI Library

Cup of green tea in hand, RainO Tenk, told me the story of how Combat Samurai Island Library got started. RainO said he was making tournament photo books for about a year or more. One day he and Jason Maddox were talking about the photo books.

RainO said, “We came up with this idea to provide the CSI community with a collection of samurai knowledge and information. Because as you see, it’s not only my books.” He pointed to the shelves of materials lining the new library at Matsushiro Castle.

I looked up and read some of the titles: A Book of Five Rings, The Art of War, and The Lotus Sutra. “Where did those other books come from?” I asked.

“I went around and searched Second Life for free books on samurai history,” he replied.

Oh right, I thought. It’s not just the albums of photos from samurai events that can be found here. There’s also RainOs C:SI Info Column which gives statistics about C:SI, blogs, landmarks, and videos. This was also where I bring new players to get the box of free combat gestures and various samurai sword fighting guides.

RainO continued. “I wanted to build the library at Kanzeon, but unfortunately me and Jason left there before the sim got running. Instead, we installed the library first at Tokugawa, a sim that was neighbored next to Meiji. Then, when Tokugawa shut down, Kafka gave the library a new home at Wulin. Then Wulin was shut down last May.”

“Well,” I said, “The library doesn’t make any money, does it? It takes up space and prims. But the history is so important. I’d hate to see that lost.”

RainO smiled, “At Wulin, I rented a shop from Kafka to pay rent because she refused to take money for the library.”

I sensed that RainO was feeling a bit wistful, talking about the past. He took a sip of tea and continued. “I like Phoenix. He’s a great guy.”

I smiled. “I believe that Phoenix is particularly interested in samurai Japan. I’m really happy he is hosting the library.” I took some notes and then looked up. “So, do you have any future plans for the library?”

“Sure,” RainO replied. “I want to make more books, collect more knowledge. In fact, just today Vega gave me some new notes to add to the library. And, I have a second release of the Sword’s Guide in mind.”

I smiled. “Well I can see one benefit for Sanada is that people visit us when they come to the library.”

“Yes, and what’s nice is there is nearly no scripts in the library except the donation box. All those boxes are plain sale boxes. Not scripted.”

I was surprised. “Wait a minute,” I said. “There are no scripts in the books? But how do the pages turn?”

“Nope,” replied RainO, shaking his head. “I use the Intelli Book System. It’s got a lot of benefits. Aside from the fact that you can either wear or rez the book, you can change the size of the book with the easy menu. It stores the photos on their server.”

“OMG” I said, blurting out a surprise gesture.

“When the book is opened it minimizes the load to the local sim server,” RainO explained. “The books actually contain no pictures. This makes a big difference in load to the server.”

“Oh! I had no idea!”

RainO paused, then said, “Well, the system is a bit expensive. But I’ve made so many books now, it’s not important anymore. See, you have to use a set of tools to make the books. Then you need the factory to make them host on their server. It’s not hard to do. You just have to buy all the tools.

At the time I did that, I didn’t have the rabbits.” (RainO raises rabbits, by the way. Rabbits that play soccer! Stay tuned for more on that story in the future)

“So it was a lot of Linden to me. The factory cost 7000 Linden, I think.”

“Wow,” I said, “You put a lot of your own money into this.”

RainO just shrugged. “It was a long time ago. My first book, Tales of Tayaila, was more than 3 years ago. Tayaila was a roleplaying sim where we CSI samurai were hired for battles as mercenaries. Daemons against fairies. Or humans against mears.”

Suddenly, RainO began to rez the Tales of Tayaila behind him. “Hm. I should add this book to the library I guess.” And then he moved it to a shelf in the library, balancing his tea at the same time.

I giggled.

“Oh don’t forget to tell them about the other free tools like the script and memory count HUD that are only available here.”

I nodded, writing myself a note.

“That script counter is useful,” he explained. “And the column gets updated with the new landmarks.”

“Landmarks change so fast,” I said. “That’s pretty handy to pick up a new one now and then.”

“Yeah, places used to change weekly.” He shifted on the zabuton. “But now it seems things are a bit more steady again since Edo is rented.”

I looked up. “One last question, RainO. Where do you see CSI in two years?”

His response was quick. “Depends. One big problem is them new viewers. They’re just nasty. I can’t fight with those and they lag me to hell. All the major features I need are gone. It’s driving me nuts.” I swear RainO almost growled. “One of the most annoying things are them silly pictures. All my friends, all my customers…do you have any idea of how long this list takes to load with all those icons? It lags me for hours.”

“Hmm,” I hummed. “Linden Labs.”

“Well they don’t fight. They don’t feel the lag!”

I grinned to myself. Lag is part of our history too. No need to make a book on it. We all know that story.