Z&A affiliate boards

As mentioned in passing a few days ago, we're currently setting ourselves up to use a new vendor system for our mall locations (and one or two boards in our main store). The choice of system was, in part, motivated by the many requests we've had over the past (almost) three years for affiliate boards.

The time has finally come to make some affiliate boards available.

So, if you are genuinely interested in selling Z&A products at a public location, please drop Antony Fairport a line in-world to find out more and get a copy of the vendor boards. Please also see this page for the affiliate agreement.

Lucky thrones

As one small part of our plans leading up to the start of our 4th year on the grid we're evaluating a new vendor system (yes, for those who have nagged and asked and politely suggested, part of the plan is to make affiliate boards available). One of the items that came with it was a lucky chair system.

Well, we say lucky chair, they look more like thrones to us. We just had to try that out didn't we? So, for the next few days at least (or, perhaps, for good), you'll find a couple of lucky chairs thrones in the main store:

The prizes are currently a random selection from our spankers, gags and carrying restraints.

The Raven Park Mansion

It's a little over a month since we dropped the new Raven Park Mansion into place and we're pleased to be able to finally announce that all the rooms are furnished and available for use. Because of this, we thought we'd post a very quick walk through of the Mansion and highlight the various rooms.

To get into the Mansion, from the Raven Park Landing point, just talk a walk up the stairs and through the main doors:

Once inside, to your right you'll find the Pod Prison:

The prison currently has space for seven inmates. Three are held in pods in the room itself (so they can be put on public display) and another four are held elsewhere in a room that, some say, is designed to use the inmates themselves to power the prison.

Next you'll find the Raven Park photo studio:

This is a fully working studio that can be used for individual, couples and group shots. This is made available for anyone to use.

Next along on the ground floor is the office:

The room contains a very comprehensive Mistress' desk (just click for a menu) and an airlock cage (very handy if you have multiple victims you need to deal with).

Finally, on the ground floor, we have the ballroom:

In here you'll find a dining table for two, a lounge with all sorts of couples animations and a piano that you're encouraged to climb all over (as with many items, touch for a menu). There's also a dance post provided for singles and couples dances.

Oh, and don't forget to have a good look at the chandelier. This is a Z&A build after all.

On the first floor of the mansion we have two play rooms that contain all kinds of dungeon furniture. One is designed to be rather smart-looking:

whereas the other is a lot more shabby:

We've also provided two bedrooms, both with beds with very comprehensive menus (which, we hope, contains scenes and animations for all tastes).

Up here you'll also find a pamper room that contains furniture that lets subs and slaves really look after their owners:

Finally, there's an entertainment lounge which contains a number of dance poles so Dommes can be entertained:

Be sure to touch the bar for a fun menu. And, again, that chandelier is worth paying attention to.

The Mansion is here for all to use. There's no cost. There's no group you need to join (although we do encourage joining Friends of Z&A to keep up with changes at Raven Park and Z&A). Just turn up and enjoy the build.

As always, if you have any questions about this or any other Z&A product or service, don't hesitate to drop is a line.

Raven Park Pony Area

In the past week we've had a minor move around of rental plots at Raven Park. In what's become a bit of a rare event for us, two plots came free but the space was very quickly snapped up. However, as part of the move around, we were left with a 1024 plot free. We did consider putting it back up for rent but, for now at least, we've decided to pull it into the main Raven Park plot and put a public play area on it.

So, as of today, Raven Park now has a small pony play area:

As well as the training circle you can see above you'll find a stable where you're free to keep your pony:

There's seating for the owners and handlers:

and for those who enjoy RLV and have a pony or two they need to keep locked up we've got a RLV paddock:

To find the pony area just land at Raven Park and take a walk past the pond or the cafe, over the bridge to the half of the region that contains the rental plots, and you'll find it there. Everyone is free to use the area, all we ask is that you keep in mind that you're surrounded by people's private homes. As always we require that you respect their privacy.

If you have any questions please contact Antony Fairport or Zardia Avindar.

Take Zanda for a ride

Most people who've been to our main store will have met Zanda. He's the scripted agent (AKA "bot") who keeps an eye on things and hands out group invites when people request them from the invite boards. And, often, he helps demonstrate devices or just be helpful. After the past couple of years he's been locked on things and had things locked on him. For most of last year he's been the welcome mat at the foot of the stairs next to the landing point.

It seems, however, that Antony has decided to take pity on him (chances are it's something to do with how he spent his time in-world yesterday) and he's set things up so Zanda can see more of the shop. Sort of.

He's created a custom version of the cage trolley and put Zanda inside it:

It's set to public use so anyone who comes into the store can hop on and drive it, taking Zanda on a tour of the ground floor (trust us, getting up the stairs isn't quite so easy).

The trolley is set to return to its parking spot one minute after you get off it so you don't have to worry about returning it yourself.

If you drop in and Zanda's not there, but the trolley is... sorry about that. It's likely his connection to the grid has been lost. He'll return later so do come back and check if you fancy a go.

So, have fun with him while it lasts. We're sure he'll appreciate seeing more of the store.

A gift at the new Velvet Thorn mall

Just over a week ago The Velvet Thorn had a complete rebuild. And, obviously, the mall got a complete overhaul too. Today we placed our vendor boards back in the mall. And, given that the new style for VT is pretty much to our taste (you'll notice that there's always been a very Victorian, with a Steampunk edge, to Raven Park, and the darker use of rust and electricity is very us), we thought we'd give all members of VT a house-warming gift to celebrate the new build, and the new year. So, pop over to the VT mall, make sure you've got your VT group tag active (please note that if you're not a member of the group, there is a L$250 fee to join), find our boards:

and touch the gift box:

The gift is made very much in the theme of the new VT build.

Note that the gift will only be available into the early new year. Expect the gift-giver to disappear any time from the 3rd onwards.

2012: Our year in review (Part 2)

This is the second part of our review of Z&A's 2012. You can find part 1 here.

July kicked off the second half of 2012 quietly on the Z&A front, with no product releases and nothing written here on the blog. That's not to say we weren't doing anything. Behind the scenes we were working on the early planning for The Femdom Hunt III, and Antony was starting to have a play with some code that would turn into a new product range.

August saw no product releases either. Again, we were working in the background on The Femdom Hunt III (the hunt was announced on the 1st of the month) and Antony was still busy working on the code for the new product range that would be released in time for the hunt.

August did see us welcoming Beaumont Manor back to having a full region. We also contributed a couple of items to their "freebie shop". You can still find these items over there.

This month also saw us taking part in the Down and Dirty Hunt. For this hunt we made a whole new kind of product: a simple RLV trap in the form of quicksand. This has since gone on sale as a Z&A product.

September was yet another month that appeared to be a quiet one on the Z&A front but which was very busy behind the scenes. By this point we were well into organising the Femdom Hunt III. Also, work was still under way with developing and testing the new range of vehicles. Some testing was nice and gentle and simply involved having a nice wander around Raven Park:

Other tests.... well, let's just say when it's Zardia and Antony testing, anything can happen...

October was, unsurprisingly, very busy. The Femdom Hunt III kicked off, we released the new range of Z&A vehicles, we kept on top of and ran The Femdom Hunt III (which included Antony having to put up with some terrible abuse by some of the hunt locations!), Antony found time to make some changes to the Avatar Radar and we put the Halloween gifts out for everyone again. Late on in the month we also started work on a project for Raven Park, which would be revealed in...

November was yet another month where most of the work was going on behind the scenes. Antony started work on a brand new project (which is still ongoing as of the time of writing, and should be ready for release early next year -- perhaps in time for our third birthday) which kept him fairly busy. Also behind the scenes we were working on a new Mansion building for Raven Park. Towards the end of the month it was ready and we deleted the old one and dropped the new one into place. As of the time of writing all but one room is furnished and available for play, but there is still more work to do (at some point soon we aim to provide descriptions of all the rooms available along with some pointers on how to use each of the toys).

Towards the very end of November we released two new vehicles. One was the carriage that had been the Z&A gift for The Femdom Hunt III, the other was a RLV sleigh. We made the sleigh available as a winter gift for all of the members of our store group.

December has been another month where much is ongoing behind the scenes. As well as the new ongoing project, Antony started work on another product which, as of the time of writing, is being tested and tweaked and should be released early next year. The changes to the play area at Raven Park continued and we're also delighted to report that the rental side of the region is not only full, but we now have a waiting list! (the gamble from earlier on in the year was very much worth it).

We released three new products (both builds that had previously been hunt gifts) and, of course, made our Christmas gifts available for free again. We also accepted an invite to, and made a build especially for, Deirdre and lelo’s Fetish Spot.

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And that brings us to the end of our review of Z&A's 2012. It's been a really enjoyable year for Z&A. We've had a lot of fun building new things. We've had a lot of fun making stuff that helps make people's SL more enjoyable (or less enjoyable... *wink*). We've especially had a lot of fun making a place where people can play and live. While we did say at the start of this review that we have no master plan (and this is true), there are plans for what'll happen in the new year. Work is under way on new products and they should be revealed within the next month or so.

To everyone who has shopped with us, hunted with us, or just visited Raven Park and enjoyed the surroundings: thank you for helping make 2012 a great year for Z&A.