The first grid covered in the Missing Image is Role Play Worlds. The “Worlds” in the name, or “realms”, as the operators call them, are separate areas on the grid, all dedicated to a certain theme. At the moment, there are three role play realms – Fantasy, Vampire and Gor – with Gor being the most advanced of them. In addition to that, there’s a fourth section, called “Oasis Grid“, which serves as a general hangout and meeting place for users and features some urban / modern / beach theme. There’s no need to create different accounts for each realm, as they’re all on the same grid, using the same asset and user database.

The welcome area is quite advanced and serves as a general info-hub as well as portal to each realm. Users can get some starting equipment here and visit the shopping areas around for additional things to buy. Also it’s the place to get the RPX meter, which is the hud for Role Play World’s in-world combat system, along with several weapons. The system handles combat, damage, death¹ and healing already, skills are planned for a future release. Also, players can create their own weapons, using the RPX developer kit.

The realms are nicely built, with the gorean realm being the biggest one by far, and also being the most heavily developed. Many areas are still being constructed, but still there are some great sights already. Teleport points (ships, portals, etc.) make for “realistic” travel, as flying is prohibited in most regions, and the use of lightshare can set the mood for the different realms. While users can rent their own regions from RPW, there are some regions set up as “fight to keep”, which means a user can keep them, as long as they can defend them against intruders, which offers additional possibilities for roleplay.

Below is a copy of the answers to my initial email to the grid operators, reposted with permission.

Hello V,

Thanks for your interest in RPW, by the way nice site you have there. Im
answering just below each one of the question, please forgive my english as
is not my native language.

On Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:14:51 -0600, V wrote:
> This is an enquiry e-mail via http://roleplayworlds.net/ from:
> V
>
> Hello there,
>
> I’m V of tgib.co.uk, where I plan on giving our readers an overview of all
> major opensim grids. Therefor, I’d like to ask you some questions about
> Role Play Worlds:
>
> 1. What audience is your grid aimed at?

A: Role Play Worlds, as the name suggest, is aimed to the gamer community,
at the moment to the gorean, middle aged fantasy and vampire role players.
The way we are bulding it, manage each world by separated (design, concept,
rules) regardless of be inside the same grid. Recently we start a general
purpose world, called Oasis Grid, which is non themed, users can relax,
share, and build at will.

>
> 2. Do you have any guidelines regarding PG or adult oriented content?

A: RPW is a 100% Mature grid, not underaged players are allowed as the
role play themes can involve adult content.

>
> 3. Is there an age limit for joining your grid?

A: Yes, the users must be over 18 years old. You can read the complete TOS
here:

http://roleplayworlds.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=83&Itemid=188

>
> 4. Is there a theme to your grid? If yes, how do you introduce new members
> to it?

A: Yes Role Play Worlds is a multi theme enviroment, at the moment you can
find The Gorean Theme pretty advanced, a Fantasy Theme (kind of king arhur
legends, lotr, etc), a Vampire Theme (this last two themes are pretty new
about inworld building) and a Free Style Grid called Oasis Grid, that is a
free style theme for user to build anything. The grid have a General
Welcome Area for the themed worlds, all the needed information to get
started is there on the first login, plus there is always someone willing
to help the new commers. You can see the worlds maps here:

http://roleplayworlds.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=228&Itemid=205

>
> 5. Is your grid hypergrid enabled? If not, do you plan on incorporating
> hypergrid in the future?

A: Not at the moment as a way to protect the creators and merchants
contents and permissions. We really want to go hypergrid, but when it reach
a maturity level enough to protect the content created by the users.

>
> 6. Is it possible for users to connect their own regions to your grid?

A: No, RPW is a closed grid due several reasons, one of them is the
security of users creations. Allowing users to connect their regions to the
grid, open the possibility of hack the user creations rights. As a second
and no less important, is the reliablity, support, stability and planning.
The way we are building it give us total control of the grid, this allow us
to offer a quiality service, stability and quick support. By example,
imagine a medieval city on a region hosted by a user, full of players, we
cant control the server power to manage the region, or if the user go
offline or drop his server, everyone on the city will be kicked out and/or
the builds done by the users can be lost and there is no way for us to
control it. So in order to reach a organized enviroment, build the world
under a detailed plan, our option was be a closed grid.

>
> 7. Can users rent land from you? If yes, at which rates?

A: Yes users can rent land, parcels, buy regions, etc. The rates vary, we
have as a base cost 30$ setup fee and 30$ Montly Tier for a sim of 5k prims
and 30$ setup fee and 100$ montly tier for a 20k prim sim. The difference
between the cost is due that low prim sims share servers with other regions
and the full prim sims are managed in it own server/customer. The prim
limits, is more a stability limit that allow us to control the load and
stability on the regions, we started with a small limit, and we has been
rising to a level we have for sure is safe for the region stability. You
can find packages as well, that are cheaper than buy the regions
individually. by example 2 low prim sims pack is 30$ setup fee and 50$
Monthly, cheaper than get 2 low prim sims individually. You can see the
full list here:

http://roleplayworlds.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96&Itemid=154

>
> 8. Is there a currency system built into your grid? If not, do you plan
on
> having one in the future?

A: Yes, we use a PayPal based system that make use of the payment features
of opensim/viewer (pay a user by a profile, pay a vendor, donate, rent,
etc) but instead of use a virtual currency, the payments are handle by
paypal in paypal secure enviroment. After the payment is done, the system
handle the process in world to update the rental scripts, ownership,
deliver, etc. We believe is much better a direct player to player economy
system without %, 3th parties or currency exchange.

>
> 9. What kind of resources are there to get more information about your
> grid?

A: You can find a lot of information, pics, etc on the web pages and in
the FAQs section at http://roleplayworlds.net and http://oasisgrid.com

>
> 10. How can users participate in how the grid is managed and built?
>

A: We are open to the community sugestion and help, a lot of work has been
done by residents in world, pretty nice builds and diff kind of creations,
even the General Role play Rules, that are grid wide, are discussed with
the community in the forums and updated if needed.

> 11. How are disputes handled between users or between the grid
management
> and users?

A: In rp any issues are managed by moderators, or regions owners, when
something need our attention is usually due copiers or someone breaking our
TOS. The community is pretty adult and usually manage the issues itself
pretty good. As grid we respect and support all the residents while they
act accordly to our terms of service.

>
> 12. Do you hold events? If yes, how are they announced? Also, can members
> hold their own events?

A: Yes, we have several nice features, like interactive live concerts,
where the users can listen, see the avatars band in world, the real band in
video and interact with them by the inworld chat. We promote the events on
the home page usually a week before. Another feature are live jams for
musicians, they can connect and jam online and the jamming session is
transmited inworld so the others users can listen them playing, is a real
nice experience. Members can hold their own events as well and make use of
the system and promote it on the web page as well.

>
> 13. Can we make this interview with your answers public on tgib.co.uk
> under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
> (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)

Yes sure, thanks for contact us and my apologize for my english . I
hope you give us a visit and meet you in world soon. If need more info you
can reach us inworld droping a IM to Aramil Ewing, BlueWall Slade, Deoria
Delpiaz, Breey Kanto and Akiko Kujisawa, or mailing us to
info@roleplayworlds.net

>
> Thank you for your contribution. I look forward to hear from you.
>
> V
> http://tgib.co.uk/

1. when dead, players are teleported to a “death city” where they will spend time recuperating

Some more information about the data: The description column contains a short summary of the nature of the grid. Ratings are either PG (no nudity, no adult content, no violence), mature (nudity allowed, but no sexual behaviour) or adult (everything allowed except for illegal conduct). Hypergrid means if the grid, or parts of it, are hypergrid enabled, allowing access from the “outside”. Region connect shows, if users can connect their own, or third party regions to the grid, while “Land rental” displays if – and, if available, at what cost – land can be rented by the grid operators themselves. Currency is an overview if the grid allows for any in-world solution to payments, be they real (Paypal) or virtual (any virtual currency).

Grid Overview

And while the very core of it, which looked incredibly promising in their Flickr stream, was down, I wandered the perimeters of it, taking some of the wonderful builds I could find and copy with me, and eventually stumble upon their botanic garden. To be honest, I can’t write any long-winded wordful praises. But I have been in SL for more than two and a half years. I have travelled it. Travelled it a lot, in fact. And I have nowhere seen anything just remotely like this. It is so much like I had wanted my own place in SL to be like. And I’m happy it exists.

This post will start a new category ‘the missing image’, displaying great places in virtual worlds to visit. I couldn’t help it. I had to write about it.