| Like every year on Labour Day I'm releasing a free slave collar, and this time I chose one of my favorite designs, a cute heart choker. I had purchased rights for this model already a while ago but never got around to create any texture maps for it, and since I'm still waiting for my vax 🥺, I decided despite myself not to go to the protest, and do some creative work for the maps and poster until the morning. You can pick up the new collar up for free in red and black color options during all of May 1 with the most recent free version of N° 9 already installed, or if you want to support us (this time the proceeds are shared with Otto and Rory), also for a fair price as a full version that includes premium poses, a puppy crawl, "Little Hearts", "Magic Leash" and "Tracker" extras, and of course many more color options. 101 Builds laterA hundred and one builds later our beautiful N° 9 arrived at BUILD 521. If you have been following my Discord, you will already know about most changes, but if not, here is the tl;dr version. After releasing BUILD 420, which was basically our "v1.0" of collar N° 9, I collected boatloads of feedback, and based on that decided to redesign the collar's locking mechanism, rewire the RLV relay, add a fantastic new timer feature, and tame the little beast for better flow. |  |
 | The LockThe lock in N° 9 has four modes, open, closed, secure and welded, providing us with a much more fine grained experience. Dominants can lock the collar, but leave the key inside, so the submissive can still undo restrictive settings, or unlock the collar on their own. Many of us prefer this trust based style. We want to be able to put on different collar and choker designs, and need a bit of room to stretch and wriggle so we can fully blossom, but sometimes it is nice to be put in place, and for that situation I gave dominants the ability to "take the key" away, which will allow them to lock the submissive out of lifting restrictions and other restrictive settings. This sounds like a small thing, but is really huge when you apply it cleverly during play time. It is nice when the dominant has this power, and with the new locking mechanism in N° 9 each role in the power exchange gets their fix, and gets it again, and again, whenever it fits. Finally there are the lifestyle and LTR couples, and they have the ability to permanently weld the collar's lock closed in Heartcore mode. |
The RLV RelayThe RLV relay has a new DISCONNECT button that is most useful to the explorers. It also makes it much clearer what a RLV relay is because the menu reflects what "object" is connecting to the collar for setting RLV restrictions. Arguably the N° 9 relay is now the best choice for everyone who loves to use, and also build, RLV enabled furniture. It just works, it isn't annoying, it makes it clear what happens. |  |
 | The HourglassI also added a brand new timer feature that makes smart use of the new locking mechanism, so it is appealing for couples, and also for solo bondage bunnies who get their kicks by putting themselves into awkward and deliciously uncomfy situations entirely on their own. I called it the Hourglass, and you can find it in Extras, and yep, I'm still working on a manual page for it (sorry 😅), but in a nutshell you are setting the time, then you go to Setup and just try checking/unchecking whatever intrigues you (the menu explains it to you), and because this is so closely tied to Restrictions you can hoppetiy-boppetiy back and forth Restrictions and Hourglass with a shortcut in either menu. There is also an interesting setting that works together with Strip. That's right. If you properly set up your Strip feature, the Hourglass can strip you naked once the timer ran out. Did I ever mention how awkward it is to develop some of these features? 😳😇 |
When you pick up your update, you will also receive a new Fire Flower sticker (that's now at v3.6), that enables you to see your Hourglass timer above the sticker on your HUD. That's so you can hide the timer hovertext above the collar (in the Title menu), but still see the time.
Honestly, I'm using Hourglass timer now more often than Siri. (Sorry Siri, it's complicated, I love you no less, pls don't skynet...)
Honestly, I'm using Hourglass timer now more often than Siri. (Sorry Siri, it's complicated, I love you no less, pls don't skynet...)
Many other small improvements
Like in all of the patches I release, there are dozens of small changes and edits that go unnoticed, and maybe that's a good thing. Many things even just work, and it makes me happy when things go smooth. For example in 521 you can drag and drop poses into the collar, and they install on their own. Notice in the GIF below how the poses I drag into the collar don't even show up? They really install that fast, but don't worry, the collar also makes friendly noises and hovertext to let you know.
Project Icebreaker and a new heart
If you have been paying very close attention, you may have overheard me talking about "Project Icebreaker". That's our R&D name for exploring new ways for Second Life players in the kink & fetish niche to get in touch with each other more easily. It is still in its early stages, but the foundation for it in our collar (it's not only collar related) has been laid with BUILD 521.
This was probably the last time that I released a patch for the collar that is using my beloved open source core (what I sometimes call the "heart"), and if you love that aspect of the collar too, then you should grab revision 521 by all means, and hold it dear.
If you followed me these last months you might be surprised because this would be a big change of heart (no pun intended) because it means that I'd be staying much longer than I said I would, and despite myself would change something that I spent a lot of time on, and fought to keep. But by all the high sentimental and emotional value this "core" has to me, the next improvement to the collar would have to be swapping it out, because I can no longer improve it. At this point the open source core scripts are truly as good as they will ever get.
The decision would have other reasons than tech stuff as well, and if you have been around on Fire Flower Deluxe, it would all make a lot of sense to you. I don't want to get into all the details as to why or what, but I do want to mention that if I decided to take this step, I would want Otto to be my best Montgomery Scott, my chief engineer, and make it clear that this wouldn't be a Wendy Starfall solo mission.
I would want that the new core is coded by another engineer, so I can focus on architecture, design and specs without becoming weighed down by other tasks. I don't know if a lot of people who are reading this can relate to my problem because it is very specific, but there are many tasks that I have to do that interrupt other tasks that I'm doing, and that is happening a lot. I can multitask very well, but I have the experience and wisdom now to know that we can only improve if I share a part of this work with someone else who is just as competent.
The N° 9 with the new engine would be released around the 10 year anniversary of when I first started to work on collar code.
This was probably the last time that I released a patch for the collar that is using my beloved open source core (what I sometimes call the "heart"), and if you love that aspect of the collar too, then you should grab revision 521 by all means, and hold it dear.
If you followed me these last months you might be surprised because this would be a big change of heart (no pun intended) because it means that I'd be staying much longer than I said I would, and despite myself would change something that I spent a lot of time on, and fought to keep. But by all the high sentimental and emotional value this "core" has to me, the next improvement to the collar would have to be swapping it out, because I can no longer improve it. At this point the open source core scripts are truly as good as they will ever get.
The decision would have other reasons than tech stuff as well, and if you have been around on Fire Flower Deluxe, it would all make a lot of sense to you. I don't want to get into all the details as to why or what, but I do want to mention that if I decided to take this step, I would want Otto to be my best Montgomery Scott, my chief engineer, and make it clear that this wouldn't be a Wendy Starfall solo mission.
I would want that the new core is coded by another engineer, so I can focus on architecture, design and specs without becoming weighed down by other tasks. I don't know if a lot of people who are reading this can relate to my problem because it is very specific, but there are many tasks that I have to do that interrupt other tasks that I'm doing, and that is happening a lot. I can multitask very well, but I have the experience and wisdom now to know that we can only improve if I share a part of this work with someone else who is just as competent.
The N° 9 with the new engine would be released around the 10 year anniversary of when I first started to work on collar code.
This beautiful community
To conclude this post, I want to say that I can't even begin to express how happy I am about our community on Discord.
People are so kind and nice all the time, and so clever, it's my privilege to be a part of Fire Flower Deluxe.
Just observing how everyone uses the N° 9, and how people find their own creative ways to make the collar work just the way they want it to is amazing. I'm learning new things all the time, and after such a long time I finally feel being a part of something again. Thank you!
I hope you have a fun with the new collar and N° 9 version. I made it for you. I wish you a happy May Day 2021. 😊💕
People are so kind and nice all the time, and so clever, it's my privilege to be a part of Fire Flower Deluxe.
Just observing how everyone uses the N° 9, and how people find their own creative ways to make the collar work just the way they want it to is amazing. I'm learning new things all the time, and after such a long time I finally feel being a part of something again. Thank you!
I hope you have a fun with the new collar and N° 9 version. I made it for you. I wish you a happy May Day 2021. 😊💕
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