So finally, I installed a third version of OpenSim, which enables me to travel to  OSGrid and compatible grids again, and I’m quite surprised about how far it has come in the meantime. Wright Plaza is evolving into a great hub for OSGrid creations, and there’s some amazing new regions to be found. One of these is Lani.

If you’re into Science Fiction, you’ll inevitably belong to one of two factions: Start Trek or Star Wars. There are some who like both equally, but usually one of the two appeals to you most. Star Trek is the somewhat “technical” end of the spectrum, while Star Wars is on the “magical” end. And while there’s some themes in between, there is also a small faction of Science Fiction that’s completely off the spectrum. One of these is Dune.

Lani is a great dune-themed region complex on OSGrid, which not only features some amazing builds (and great sound effects), but also offers a large assortment of them to take with you, so it’s well worth a visit, if only to get your free Ornithopter.

Grid: OSGrid

Region: Lani

Hypergrid: hg.osgrid.org:80:Lani

You know, forget the intro. Look at this:

This is Romenna. It’s a 16-sim… build. The city itself covers 9 sims, around it are forests and a small village covering another 7. And it’s amazing

We visited it today on the HGAC tour, so I’m sure Pathfinder will write something more elaborate about it himself, but I just want to mention that it runs on a private grid, with a pretty low-cost server, and a normal house-bandwith. That means, pretty much everyone could build something similar from home. Did I mention how amazing this is?

You can find it at PMgrid, and visit it via hypergrid at julpet.ath.cx:9020, which is a HG 1.0 destination in the upper regions. Search for the regions starting with ROM when you arrive there and expect some lag, as everything needs to rezz first. Don’t come in droves – the bandwith is not exactly suited for large groups of avatars. But isn’t it amazing!

In Pathfinder’s absence, I happily was allowed to host the meetings of the HGAC. Sadly, our travels thus far have been restricted to HG 1.0 regions, and destinations there are getting very scarce, as more and more grids upgrade to (at least) HG 1.5 i6. And since we have been busy this year, setting up several new things on TGIB, and since it was exactly 1 year ago that the idea of TGIB as a free resource for OpenSim content was born, I decided to take the club to our very own sim and show a few of the things we’ve been working on.

(For more information about the Hypergrid Adventurers Club and how you can attend our meetings, please see our homepage. You can follow our club’s tweets at #HGAC, and feel free to join our ongoing conversations on the HGAC Google Group Mailing List.)

Meeting #33

1/16/2011 : 5pm GMT

10 Hypernauts in attendance:

• Sail Woznaik
• Tyndareo Chrysomalles
• Neo Cortex
• Aloe Cortex
• Oronoque Westland
• Jokay Wollongong
• Jeff Kelley
• Nyx Ivory
• El Sliven
• Vanish Seriath

Vanish Seriath: Hi Nyx!
Nyx Ivory: hi V :-) good of you to host HGAC
El Sliven: Hi there Nyx.
Vanish Seriath: Hehe, well, can’t let you down, can I?
El Sliven smiles
Nyx Ivory: hello, El – a pleasure to meet you
El Sliven: yes….you as well.
Nyx Ivory: i know y’all have been switching things around a bit – has your Inn simm been down?
Vanish Seriath: No, but the adress has changed.
Vanish Seriath: It’s on tgib.co.uk:9069 now.
Jeff Kelley enters Pathlandia (now 4 visitors in this region)
Vanish Seriath: Hi Jeff.
El Sliven: Hello Jeff!
Nyx Ivory: ah – well that would explain why i couldn’t find it :-)
Jeff Kelley: Hi El, Hi all
Vanish Seriath: I guess so.
Jokay Wollongong enters Pathlandia (now 5 visitors in this region)
Vanish Seriath: Hi Jokay.
El Sliven: Hello Jokay!
Vanish Seriath: Heh, I’m kinda glad you all could make it.
Jeff Kelley: Glad to meet you again, V
Vanish Seriath: How’re you all doing?
Nyx Ivory: a bit befuddled – but that’s status quo for me :-)
Jeff Kelley: fine thanks; seems like my twitterboard has some success, lol
Vanish Seriath: Aww
Vanish Seriath: Yes, the twitterboard is great!
Nyx Ivory: ah – seeing that! clever!
Jeff Kelley: want one, Nyx ?
Vanish Seriath: I was playing with website on a prim scripts lately.
Oronoque Westland enters Pathlandia (now 6 visitors in this region)
Vanish Seriath: Best I could do is put an image from the web on it.
Vanish Seriath: Hi Oro.
Oronoque Westland: hi
Nyx Ivory: i think i got a copy, thanks Jeff!
Jeff Kelley: Hi Oro
Oronoque Westland: trouble getting here last time…missed you all
Vanish Seriath: Aww.
Vanish Seriath: Well, I’m glad you made it this time.
Oronoque Westland: me too
Vanish Seriath: How’s Phoenix working for you on OpenSim, Nyx?
Nyx Ivory: i rather like it, Vanish – just updated to latest a few moments ago – so, we’ll see
Vanish Seriath: I tried it again a week ago or so, and I had problems with avatar layers again.
Nyx Ivory: oh – good to know
Vanish Seriath: Well, you know, being checkered and full of holes.
Nyx Ivory: oh right! alpha thing – ugh
Vanish Seriath: Yes.
Vanish Seriath: I guess they’re not too interested in OpenSim at Phoenix.
Nyx Ivory: do you get a sense that Imprudence actively supports OS?
Aloe Cortex enters Pathlandia (now 7 visitors in this region)
Vanish Seriath: They are.
Vanish Seriath: It’s in their mission statement.
Nyx Ivory: *blush* :-)
Vanish Seriath: Hi Aloe.
Neo Cortex enters Pathlandia (now 8 visitors in this region)
Vanish Seriath: Hi Neo.
El Sliven: Hi guys!
Vanish Seriath: Hi there.
Aloe Cortex: hello, everyone
El Sliven: Hi oronque…I was afk for a bit…good to see you.
Oronoque Westland: you too
Vanish Seriath: Neo crashed?
Oronoque Westland: Jeff, what viewer are you usimg please
Tyndareo Chrysomalles enters Pathlandia (now 7 visitors in this region)
Jeff Kelley: Imprudence
Oronoque Westland: thanks
Jeff Kelley: yw
Vanish Seriath: Hi Tyndareo, welcome.
Oronoque Westland: I can see the others, but not yours
Tyndareo Chrysomalles: hi
Tyndareo Chrysomalles: still rezzing
El Sliven: Hello Tyn
Neo Cortex enters Pathlandia (now 9 visitors in this region)
Vanish Seriath: Wb Nyx.
Aloe Cortex: hello, tyndareo
Vanish Seriath: Okay, let me kick it off with the standard intro.
Nyx Ivory: hello again all :-) just proved Vanish right about Phoenix
Vanish Seriath: Welcome to the Hypergrid Adventurers Club! Thank you all for joining us today.
Vanish Seriath: The first 30 min of each meeting is spent on introductions and an open discussion.
Vanish Seriath: And for the second 30 min of each meeting, we will make some Hypergrid jumps to visit and explore an interesting location on the Hypergrid.
Vanish Seriath: To start, if you wish, feel free to jump in and say a few words about yourself and your projects/interests in open chat. This is always a good opportunity for networking.
Vanish Seriath: I post a full report and transcript of each meeting’s open chat on my blog, so this is also a chance for you to share information with everyone who reads the blog.
Vanish Seriath: And if you say anything in open chat that you would NOT like to be posted on my blog, please just say so in chat and I will redact your comments.
Vanish Seriath: Phew.
Vanish Seriath: I’m V of tgib.co.uk.
El Sliven: I am also known as El Firecaster…the other half of TGIB…well almost half….hahaha…I am V’s partner and occasional poster on TGIB.
Jokay Wollongong: hi all
Oronoque Westland: hi Jo
Vanish Seriath: Hi Jokay.
El Sliven: Hi Jokay!
Aloe Cortex: hello, jokay
Oronoque Westland: are you dry?
El Sliven: WB Neo…
Jokay Wollongong: oo yes we are all safe and dry here.. terrible to watch the floods tho… i am too far away to go help with the volunteers who are cleaning up brisbane ;(
Aloe Cortex: smiles at neo “hello, love”
Jokay Wollongong: Hey Neo ;)
Vanish Seriath: Hi Neo.
Oronoque Westland: so tragic
Neo Cortex: Hi @ll
El Sliven: yes…it IS tragic.
Vanish Seriath: I was just starting with the intro.
Oronoque Westland: I fear we have not been treating Mother Nature well

At this point, Pathlandia was going down shortly, so we rejoined a few minutes later there.

Vanish Seriath: Hi.
Jokay Wollongong: Hey Van.. .i was just sending them over to pathlandia..
Neo Cortex: ok, i’ll try… but with my luck in creating wormholes in the hg fabric ^^
Vanish Seriath: Aw, okay.
Jokay Wollongong: lets see if it behaves.. otherwise we’ll have to adjourn to safe scooter sim ;)
Aloe Cortex: thanks
Oronoque Westland: @Jeff, I like your twitter board
Neo Cortex enters Pathlandia (now 6 visitors in this region)
Vanish Seriath: Okay, once more with feeling.
El Sliven enters Pathlandia (now 7 visitors in this region)
Nyx Ivory: /grins at Vanish
Jokay Wollongong enters Pathlandia (now 8 visitors in this region)
Neo Cortex: maybe Pathlandia didnt like my winter pullover…
Vanish Seriath laughs.
Jokay Wollongong: now.. everyone cross virtual fingers and toes, do a rain dance and pray to the grid goddess.. lolz
Neo Cortex: it seems opensim is giving me a bumpy ride today…
Aloe Cortex: aren’t you the grid goddess?
Neo Cortex: nice moonwalk, V ^^
Vanish Seriath laughs.
Jokay Wollongong: lolz aloe
Vanish Seriath: (lag)
Nyx Ivory: (wonders if an un-rain dance might help Down Under)
El Sliven: whew
Jokay Wollongong: Pathlandia is def in a bad bad mood today
Vanish Seriath: ?
Neo Cortex: AO is futile…
Sail Woznaik enters Pathlandia (now 9 visitors in this region)
El Sliven: long road back!
Vanish Seriath: Okay, just ignore my Michael Jackson imitation.
Jeff Kelley: lol
Aloe Cortex: lol. V
Jokay Wollongong: Aww El.. we need to give out snacks for weary travellers.. lolz
Vanish Seriath: Hi Sail.
El Sliven nods
Sail Woznaik: soory about being late
Vanish Seriath: No problem.
El Sliven: HI sail!
Neo Cortex: np, you just missed one crash ^^
Aloe Cortex: you missed all the fun, sail
El Sliven: well…we are still just starting…kinda
Sail Woznaik: opps
Vanish Seriath: I have two things to announce today.
Vanish Seriath: First: I experimented with different OpenSim versions, and I got your TGIB standalone running on both OS 0.6.9 and OS 0.7
Vanish Seriath: Which means it’s accessible from both hypergrid versions.
Jokay Wollongong: ooo well done Vanish
Nyx Ivory: wow! very cool!
Vanish Seriath: It’s not exactly the same sim, but inworld chat is linked via IRC.
Neo Cortex: errmmm… but only one at a time still, i guess?
Vanish Seriath: No, both at the same time.
Vanish Seriath: There are some restrictions.
Vanish Seriath: Visitors from each version don’t see each other.
Vanish Seriath: (But can talk to one another)
Aloe Cortex: parallel realities?
Vanish Seriath: Yes, kinda.
El Sliven giggles
Neo Cortex: are you running them on the same database?
Nyx Ivory: that’s a bit mind boggling – in a good way
Vanish Seriath: No, I have two separate databases.
El Sliven nods…yes it is Nix1
Neo Cortex: so they are “just” two copies of the same region, but linked via your IRC bridge to be able to talk to each other
Oronoque Westland: I have not yet tried IRC
Vanish Seriath: Correct.
Vanish Seriath: Which is the only workaround so far.
Neo Cortex: i just wanted to get that point right, so there is still no real coupling between the different versions
Vanish Seriath: No, the two versions are incompatible in that regard.
Vanish Seriath: You can, on your own standalones, run different versions with the same database, but not at the same time.
Nyx Ivory: @Oro – me neither – IRC sounds so old school – and a bit scary to me
Neo Cortex: but that bridge is a really cool thing (as i have already encountered)… Do you still have it running?
Vanish Seriath: Yes.
Vanish Seriath: We’ll take a look later.
El Sliven: I feel the same was Nxy and Oro…but I must admir
El Sliven: admit that for
Jokay Wollongong: We have some IRC tools setup we can experiment with too Oro… i’ll put it on the list for an upcoming sandbox workshop ;)
El Sliven: hypergridding it is really a useful tool
Vanish Seriath: The other thing is, I’m currently working on a free tutorial sim for OpenSim newbies.
Jokay Wollongong: we’ve used irc links out of SL a few times for edu events with MQ and the onlinevents.co.uk peeps
Nyx Ivory: :-) El – good to know
Vanish Seriath: It’ll be up for download once it’s finished.
Aloe Cortex: thanks, vanish. that will be very useful
Vanish Seriath: It’s the stop for our visit today.
El Sliven: It’s the closest thing to group chat we have in the hypergrid.
Nyx Ivory: oh – yes – if anyone wants a free .raw see icarusstudios.co.uk
Vanish Seriath: Aww, I haven’t heard of that.
Oronoque Westland: I love learning all these (for me) new things
Neo Cortex: great! i already have ideas…. using different channels for local and inter-sim chat… awww… what a host of new possibilities…
El Sliven: They are new for me too Oro.
El Sliven smiles
Nyx Ivory: glad to know we are burning thru the learning curves together
Neo Cortex: isnt that funny, we are the creators and the lab rats all in one
El Sliven: yes!
Vanish Seriath: Hehe.
Nyx Ivory: :-) Neo
Vanish Seriath: Well, we’re the scientists swallowing our own cures.
Vanish Seriath: I guess that’s only fair.
Jokay Wollongong: isnt that part of the fun? ;)
El Sliven: kinda scares me sometimes.
El Sliven laughs
Nyx Ivory: “that which doesn’t kill us/crash us makes us stronger”
Aloe Cortex: not sure we need cures…this seems a healthy and thriving enterprise
Neo Cortex: but since you are here i have to guess you arent too afraid of the new things to come ;-)
El Sliven: true,
Oronoque Westland: hope we are not Dr. Jekyll…he was his own lab rat and it was not very pretty
Nyx Ivory: @Aloe – i like that way of looking at it
Vanish Seriath: Hmmmm.
Aloe Cortex: lo, oronoque
Vanish Seriath: I have things like that in the basement.
Vanish Seriath: Somewhere.
Neo Cortex shivers remembering the fly-man…
El Sliven laughs
Oronoque Westland: makes sure her tail isn’t showing
El Sliven: remind me to stay out of the basement!
Nyx Ivory: (notes to self – stay well away from V’s basement)
Vanish Seriath: And finally, TGIB is one year old.
Nyx Ivory whispers: :-
Vanish Seriath: So we’d like to invite you all to celebrate with us after the meeting.
Nyx Ivory: :-) El
El Sliven nods
Neo Cortex: nope: Oro… i cant see no tail ^^
Jokay Wollongong: Congrats TGIB :)
El Sliven: yes….you are all welcome to come!
Nyx Ivory: Congrats on that!
El Sliven: It should be fun.
Sail Woznaik: congrads
Aloe Cortex: congratulations! a wonderful accomplishment
Vanish Seriath: Hehe, thank you.
El Sliven whispers V will be singing
Neo Cortex: And what a way you made in that year!
Vanish Seriath: Shuddub.
Aloe Cortex: is that good, el?
El Sliven: YeS!
Nyx Ivory: grins
Vanish Seriath: With a capital S.
Neo Cortex: I am watching your site developing all the time
El Sliven: He is awesome….you need to come listen!
Vanish Seriath: Aww.
Aloe Cortex: i will do that : )
Neo Cortex: and you for sure had a great influence on the opensim community
Vanish Seriath: Tss.
El Sliven: I LOVE to hear my baby sing…
El Sliven smiles
Vanish Seriath: I wouldn’t overestimate that.
Neo Cortex: Thats the spirit i love :)
Vanish Seriath: Anyway, shall we go and have a look?
Vanish Seriath: I’m obviously walking already.
Neo Cortex: Honestly: take a look at many sims all over opensim…
Neo Cortex: you find some of your creations all over.
Vanish Seriath: Aww.
El Sliven smiles
Vanish Seriath: Well, I haven’t been around as much as I would like to.
Aloe Cortex: a permanent legacy
Vanish Seriath: But I’m glad people like it.
Neo Cortex: No, not aww… smile and be proud
El Sliven nods
Vanish Seriath smiles and is proud.
Aloe Cortex: that’s the spirit!
Neo Cortex: It seems it came out exactly the way you expected it after you decided to got the cretive commons way!
Vanish Seriath: Hmm.
Vanish Seriath: I have to admit, it worked quite wel.
Vanish Seriath: *well* even.
Neo Cortex: I will follow and lets see what happens!
Vanish Seriath: Okay, I couldn’t set Pathfinders Blamgates, but it’s just one jump.
Oronoque Westland: I discovered V’s website at the same time that I joined JokaydiaGrid so it was so fortuitous
Vanish Seriath: the adress is tgib.co.uk:9069:the path
Vanish Seriath: Just copy/paste in map.
Jokay Wollongong: everyone here is a seasoned hypergridder i think.. but i’ll wait till i see the last of you make it out.. yell if you need helps ;)
Nyx Ivory: hmmm
Jokay Wollongong: not happy Nyx?
Jeff Kelley: failed for me
Vanish Seriath: Wow, I finally stopped walking.
Vanish Seriath: Hmm.
Vanish Seriath: What did it say?
Jokay Wollongong: Did it fail to map or fail to teleport JEff?
Jeff Kelley: Failed to teleport, i’m trying agin
Nyx Ivory: i see on map – but tp failed
Jokay Wollongong: hrrrm… sometimes popping back to Scooter sim will get you out
Vanish Seriath: Try again please.
Jeff Kelley: ‘Problems connecting to destination’, seems like a timeout
Vanish Seriath: Hmm.
Nyx Ivory: ok – gonna try from scooter
Jokay Wollongong: i see some happy ‘successfully informed hg grid of impending user’ so some of us are making it out.. try from Scooter
Vanish Seriath: Yes, they all made it so far.
Jeff Kelley: failed again, i will try now from another place
Jokay Wollongong: a relog might be in order jeff… is newworld mid or upper? (i can never rememebr and its 4am.. hehe)
Jeff Kelley leaves Pathlandia (back to 3 visitors in this region)
Vanish Seriath: Hmm.
Jokay Wollongong: Go celebrate Vanish.. i’ll hang out here for a bit and help jeff if he comes back
Vanish Seriath: Okay.
Vanish Seriath: Thanks a lo.
Vanish Seriath: *lot*
Jokay Wollongong: nooo probs… seeya in a bit ;)
El Sliven: I see you Oro.
Neo Cortex: and there are sooo many factors involved
Vanish Seriath: Hi there.
Neo Cortex: rebaking helps a lot
Aloe Cortex: i see you, to, oro
Sail Woznaik: help, can not find rebake in this browser.
Oronoque Westland: thanks
Aloe Cortex: i rebake constantly
Neo Cortex: but sometimes a viewer refuses to load a new texture
El Sliven: cntrl alt r
Aloe Cortex: whenever i think of it, lol
Neo Cortex: i have different issues with Hippo vs. Imprudence
Neo Cortex: sometimes one is better, sometimes the other
Neo Cortex: so far only Sail still looks grey to me
Oronoque Westland: I cannot get audio stream in Imprudence, but get it with Hippo and the old SL viewer
Neo Cortex: and Nyx…
Vanish Seriath: Heh, okay.
Sail Woznaik: anyone know where rebake is on imprudance
Nyx Ivory: whew!
Vanish Seriath: You’re all here, I guess.
El Sliven: sail
El Sliven: it is cntrl alt r
Neo Cortex: the experimental imprudence cant play audio atm.
Aloe Cortex: under edit, sail
Neo Cortex: take the 1.3 instead
Aloe Cortex: refresh appearance or something like that
Sail Woznaik: thanks, I would of never thought that, looking for rebake, but it is refresh
Vanish Seriath: Rebake: ctrl alt r
Oronoque Westland: I use Imprudence 1.3.0 RC1 , I can see the video but do not get the sound
Vanish Seriath: Refresh appearance is the same.
Sail Woznaik: any better
Vanish Seriath: Takes a bit.
Neo Cortex: i also have noticed sometimes the eyes wont load and cause problems of that kind
Aloe Cortex: sorry, sail : (
Neo Cortex: it usually helps to have a second set of basic body parts at hand
Vanish Seriath: Okay, to demonstrate the IRC bridge:
Nyx Ivory: don’t get to say that every day, Neo :-)
Neo Cortex: eyes, hair, skin, shape and optionally a shirt and pants ^^
TGIB070-14: : I am currently in TGIB, running 0.7
TGIB070-14: : The way this works is: Local chat is transferred to IRC, and from there to the other version.
TGIB070-14: : (protip: Don’t talk confidential in local)
Neo_Cortex joins #tgib
Neo_Cortex: knock knock…
El Sliven giggles
JeffKelley joins #tgib
El Sliven: smarty!
Neo_Cortex: this is Neo Cortex inside IRC ^^
JeffKelley: so cool
Neo Cortex: Hey! welcome to the world of colours, Sail!
Oronoque Westland: how do I join, pleae?
Sail Woznaik: thanks, finally
El Sliven stands around and looks cute since she does not know how to open IRC!
Vanish Seriath: To join the IRC room, you need an IRC client.
Vanish Seriath: The server is irc.freenode.net, channel is #tgib
Aloe Cortex: joins el in listening attentively
El Sliven giggles
Jeff Kelley: Phoenix has a built-in IRC client
Aloe Cortex: and you look nice, sail : )
Nyx Ivory: hides behind El, Oro & Aloe
Neo Cortex: or a web based one like e.g. can be found on the osgrid website under chat
Vanish Seriath: There are many irc clients for any OS.
Sail Woznaik: thanks,
El Sliven: you can get a client by downloading one from th web
El Sliven: (yes sail…I see you too!)
Oronoque Westland: hello
Vanish Seriath: A good IRC client for Mac is Colloquy
Neo Cortex: this is what our chat looks like in IRC:
Neo Cortex: [18:53] There are many irc clients for any OS. – Vanish Seriath of The Path
[18:54] thanks, – Sail Woznaik of The Path
[18:54] you can get a client by downloading one from th web – El Sliven of The Path
[18:54] (yes sail…I see you too!) – El Sliven of The Path
El Sliven hangs her head in shame
Aloe Cortex: thanks, neo
El Sliven: OKOKOK…I guess I will have to download that after all this is done.
Vanish Seriath: The point is, IRC allows for communication between versions, and also can serve as a group chat for OpenSIm.
Neo Cortex: one idea where this IRC bridge might come in handy is for huge audiences… spread over 10 sims and still be able to hear and eventually talk to each other
Vanish Seriath: There are many IRC rooms that are OpenSim related.
Oronoque Westland: what about for a PC?
Nyx Ivory: ah right – a glimmer of understanding
Vanish Seriath: Oro, try mIRC: http://www.mirc.com/
Oronoque Westland: thanks
Aloe Cortex: nods couldn’t see the reason before but now i do. thanks V
El Sliven: I won’t TELL you how many IRC windows V has open at one time…let’s just say…they are numerous!
El Sliven laughs
Vanish Seriath: Tss.
Neo Cortex: just one thing to be aware of: this is chatting to the world, not just inside this sim
Vanish Seriath: Yes.
El Sliven giggles
El Sliven: HELLO WORLD!
Neo Cortex: irc can be read by anyone joining, and this version sends all in clear text
Neo Cortex: and as far as i know most IRC channels are put into some kind of archive
Aloe Cortex: puts her hand over her mouth
Vanish Seriath: Hehe.
Neo Cortex: lol…. hush everybody….
El Sliven giggles
El Sliven: shhhh…..god is listening!
Neo Cortex shouts: Hello World! I have nothing to hide! (at least not here…)
Vanish Seriath: And yes, Phoenix has a built-in IRC client, which I like very much.
Vanish Seriath: I was trying to get the Imprudence devs to build one into Imprudence.
Vanish Seriath: But they’re not too interested in it, since I was the only one asking for it.
Neo Cortex: i am a bit scared of phoenix after the emerald story…
Aloe Cortex: are you folks in IRC seeing anything from other places now?
Vanish Seriath: No.
El Sliven: Maybe more of us should hit Imprudence up about it?
Vanish Seriath: There’s nobody logged into the other version atm.
Oronoque Westland: all’s quiet in the metaverse
Aloe Cortex: do you often see things when you are on?
Neo_Cortex: here on IRC this is only inside the #tgib channel
Vanish Seriath: No.
Aloe Cortex: do people announce events?
Vanish Seriath: No, in the irc channels, it’s mostly troubleshooting.
Aloe Cortex: thanks!
Vanish Seriath: People are coming in, asking for help.
Neo Cortex: and bashing onto the developers ;-)
Vanish Seriath: Yes.
Aloe Cortex: lol
Aloe Cortex: of course…
Neo Cortex: imagine IRC as a huge collection of chat rooms
Vanish Seriath: But there is a channel #hgac for the hgac.
Vanish Seriath: And one for tgib.
Vanish Seriath: And several others for opensim.
Aloe Cortex: so it isn’t going to the whole world, then?
Neo Cortex: and there must be a room or 5 for every topic you can imagine
Vanish Seriath: And since we’re all somewhat scattered around the metaverse, it’s great to stay in touch that way.
Neo Cortex: in fact you can (and do) create one for your needs just on the fly
Aloe Cortex: and people from all over open sim participate. wow
Vanish Seriath: Yes.
Vanish Seriath: It’s pretty much the only chance to talk to the developers directly, too.
Oronoque Westland: so basically, you communicate within your channel, but anyonw could join the channel at any time?
Vanish Seriath: Yes.
Neo Cortex: there are e.g. #opensim, #opensim-dev (careful, dev’s only ^^), #osgrid, #hypergate, #hgac…. you name it…
Vanish Seriath: You can register private channels and restrict access.
Vanish Seriath: But most channels are open.
Neo Cortex: yep, and you usually join several
Aloe Cortex: what a great resource!
Neo Cortex: and you dont have to register for most channels
Jeff Kelley: i see no channel op on #tgib
Aloe Cortex: how would you find out about channels to join?
Vanish Seriath: I’m not signed in as OP.
Vanish Seriath: You find channels on several opensim sites.
Vanish Seriath: #meta7 has one.
Neo Cortex: IRC has a set of commands, one of them is “/help”
Vanish Seriath: As does #imprudence
Vanish Seriath: And #phoenixviewer
Neo Cortex: IRC is a bit old fashioned
Jeff Kelley: but light and fast
Neo Cortex: these are the help topics:
Neo Cortex: [19:07] == index Help topics available to users:
[19:07] == index
[19:07] == index ACCEPT ADMIN AWAY CHALLENGE
[19:07] == index CMODE CNOTICE CPRIVMSG CREDITS
[19:07] == index ERROR HELP INDEX INFO
[19:07] == index INVITE ISON JOIN KICK
[19:07] == index KNOCK LINKS LIST LUSERS
[19:07] == index MAP MOTD NAMES NICK
[19:07] == index NOTICE OPER PART PASS
[19:07] == index PING PONG PRIVMSG QUIT
[19:07] == index STATS TIME TOPIC TRACE
[19:07] == index UMODE USER USERHOST USERS
[19:07] == index VERSION WHO WHOIS WHOWAS
[19:07] == index End of /HELP.
Nyx Ivory: light and fast IS good for OpenSim
Neo Cortex: i think this might be a topic for a whole HGAC session, or for one we set up for ppl interested
Aloe Cortex: hmmmm……. a big cryptic for non-techies but very useful, i’m sure
Vanish Seriath: Okay, shall we go and celebrate?
Neo Cortex: it has a bit of a steep learning curve for starters, but it is easy once you get it
Neo Cortex shouts: Yay! partytime!

Thereupon we met in The Grey Inn Between. I first spoke a few things about the current state of the metaverse and the future of TGIB: anniversary talk

Full transcript (big thanks to El):

Okay…thank you all for coming. I would like to say a few things before we get started. I’m V of tgib.co.uk. With me is my lovely partner, El. I hope you can hear us, if not please say so. I’d like to start this meeting with having El read something for me, not only for me but for us all.

El reads “How to tell if you actually own something by Tateru Nino.”

Thank you very much. I had set up a speech for today that I wanted to give and it all sounded fair until Friday when Blue Mars announced that it would stop its PC development which pretty much meant that it was going down south pretty fast and would be closing up soon. I mean we all expect it to close pretty soon. And so…what I originally wanted to say is not what’s in my heart right now, so I am just trying to make this a little bit as we go along.

When Blue Mars came out, that was kinda a year ago, maybe a little bit more…I was…I had this feeling that there was another virtual world and I was a little bit afraid that it would become the next big thing and Second Life would become obsolete and we would all have to move to Blue Mars because that’s where everybody would go to.

Blue Mars was really advanced in terms of graphics, it had great graphics. It had a better way of producing content as far as the complexity of the content was concerned. You could use meshes right away. It promised you to have much bigger regions with much…many, many more avatars on them than you could have in Second Life. So it all sounded like it was much better. So what I was afraid of that..was that…you know…everybody would go there and all the things that I had…all the work I put into Second Life would be for naught and forgotten. I’m a little bit relieved that this is not the case but, then I am feeling very sorry for all the people in Blue Mars right now who are losing their community and all the work they put into it. And this is not the first time it happens. Actually things like that seem to happen all the time. The last time I remember that was really important was when There.com shut down…that was also about a year ago.

So…the thing I want to stress today and the thing that is important to me…is that we…we have to make sure that our communities survive and we have to make sure that the things we have we do actually own and not just have granted as a license by someone else.

That’s the whole point of TGIB. We…I started it a year ago…um…after I came to Open Sim and originally tried to make some kind of shop there….which I..well the idea wasn’t that good and I soon thereafter changed my mind and just published whatever I have made and am still making under Creative Commons for everybody to download so that they could use it on their own grid…or someone else’s grid…or a stand alone…or whatever you are using Open Sim for. And uh…and that’s the point. The point is not that…the point is not giving out freebies. Freebies is…are everywhere and you can get freebies on the hypergrid and they are great. But all of that only goes so far in terms of owning them when you do not have access to the actual content.

So…the point is, to make sure that what we are working on survives and to make sure that what…that our community and that the things that we put our work into in our heart and our….um…our care….stay with us…is to… make sure that we own them. And we can only own them if we have them actually on our computers. So, I’m a big advocate of people running their own installation of Open Sim. It’s not very hard to do that. And I’m trying to make some tutorials…to explain it a little bit more that everybody really knows how to make that. Because only then you actually have control over the things you own and you do own them. There are great grids and I love a lot of grids, but there is nothing compared to actually having your inventory with you.

So….TGIB has changed a little bit. Since the beginning of THIS year…uh…we moved to our own dedicated server. We are running this region right now on our own dedicated server along with the website and several other services, including the audio stream. Which is..uh…really comfortable for us. And it is also a little bit cheaper than the setup I had before and again…it is not hard to do that. If you just look a little bit around on the web. I mean…you know I am not…I am not trained in artistry and I am not educated in computers. I do not have any education in these things at all. All I have been doing I looked up on the web. So I my guess always is…that if I can do it anyone can. And um…it is really not hard to set all of these things up. I would encourage anyone who wants to try that out…to just try it out…because there is nothing much that can go wrong.

Um…Another thing…I mean the things that were on my mind a year ago when I started Second Life…. NOT Second Life…started TGIB are the same problems we have still. Some of them are how do I get my inventory from here to there…which is…you know…kind of painful…especially when you come from Second Life and don’t have anything anymore. Um…the…ya know…the only real solution I can say is to make exports and re-import them…that’s probably the only thing that really works reliably. You can get…you can transfer inventory on the hypergrid which is a little bit…a little bit prone to go wrong, to say the least. So it might take a little…a few more tries to do that. But exports and imports work pretty reliably.

And the other way is…the other problem is that…how do I keep up with my community? Because we are all scattered all over the metaverse. You know, Open Sim is a great community, but it is also quite a small community and uh…on top of that we are …we are scattered over a multitude of grids and stand alones and there is no real reliable way to communicate between these things. So one of the things that really helps us communicate is IRC. We have been talking about that a little earlier. IRC is an old chat system from the beginnings of the internet. It is still around because works pretty reliably and is just useful. And uh…many people in Open Sim and many developers in Open Sim are using IRC to stay in touch. Um…so…I…for all the people who do not know what IRC is, I will write a tutorial about that soon. It’s really, really useful…especially since we don’t have any group chat or anything that works…you know on the hypergrid and…most of the time doesn’t even work IN the grids. Yes…we must find a way to bridge groups across grids…I agree and so far the only…the only solution I can think of is IRC. I’m not sure if or what kind of work is being done on the group module, if any and if there is any plan to make this work over hypergrid. I don’t think that’s going to come in the near future. So…my…one thing…I want to propose is IRC.

The other thing is…I’m not really comfortable offering some services for the greater public. I mean…I have installed Open Sim…several versions of Open Sim on my server. I have um….one of them…the 0.7 version IS set up so it would allow registrations, but I strongly discourage that. If at all…please set up your own stand alone and enable it for hypergrid and jump around and have your own inventory on your own computer. This is much better than registering with me or anything.

But any…but something else that I would actually recommend you to look into is Diaspora, which is a new social network software. It is kinda of like Open Sim in that it is a project that gives you the software to run a social network. And the cool thing about it is that the social networks that are installed are connected. So if somebody is registered on a different server that runs Diaspora and wants to “friend you” on your own server running Diaspora, you can do that. I have set up a Diaspora “pod”…they call it pod…it is just a Diaspora installation…on TGIB and you can access it on tgib.co.uk:3000…because it is on port 3000 and you are welcome to have your account there. I think it is pretty useful for people to stay in touch when they are in Open Sim. The really good thing…and that’s the point…why I recommend it…is because you can at anytime export all the data you have on the Diaspora server by a simple download click and upload it to a different Diaspora server. And thus you have…you can always take your data and your stuff with you. Diaspora is being run by a small group of a…students…oh I forgot what college they are from…um…to…the official Diaspora site and the official Diaspora pod is at joindiaspora.com. Diaspora is pretty cool to install…I mean it has a lot of dependencies but it works really reliably once you got it running…let me copy/paste the address in local chat shortly. I would love to see that work, because…..yeah…because it is a great way to stay connected. And I think that’s one of the things we need to work on, is to stay connected across the hypergrid and across the different grids because Open Sim is a small community and being scattered all over is not really helping. We….we are not all that small though. And that’s something I had to find out lately that even tho…I mean I was always thinking…you know if we are a handful of people…you know…that are strewn across the metaverse and it’s just um…chance for us to meet somewhere. But it seems that this group seems to be a little bit larger than I originally thought and it’s growing…so there is no reason for us to feel all that small any more. But we need to stay connected.

So these are the two things…or actually maybe three…I lost count…these are the things that um…that are on my mind right now. I don’t want to lose my community. I don’t want to uh… to lose all the work that I put into it. And um…I don’t want anyone else to do that. And I am feeling very sorry for any community that shuts down because of…whatever reason there are…mostly they are economic reasons. And even if an Open Sim grid shuts down, that is a very sad thing too for me personally. So what TGIB is trying to do is to enable you to regain that possession, that ownership of your own things. And I think Diaspora is a good way to do that and I think IRC is a good way to stay connected.

Thank you very much.

Recording of the concert afterwards:

1. Scarborough Fair
2. 074-75
3. Goodbye Caroline
4. Carlow
5. Back home in Derry
6. Wonderwall
7. Salisbury Hill
8. Red Vines
9. Papercup
10. Whiskey in the jar
11. All along the watchtower
12. As I sat sadly by her side
13. Daysleeper
14. Hand in my pocket
15. Romeo & Juliet
16. Stagger Lee
17. Stairway to heaven
18. Otherside
19. The Passenger
20. Here comes the flood
21. Sultans of Swing

Meeting #34

1/16/2011 : 10pm GMT

6 Hypernauts in attendance:

• Strachan Ofarrel
• Peter Miller
• Johnnie Waugh
• stiofain nbmcmedia
• El Sliven
• Vanish Seriath

Vanish Seriath: Apologies.
stiofain nbmcmedia: yea he keeps coming and going
Vanish Seriath: I couldn’t get in for a bit.
Johnnie Waugh: you seem to be having a crashing time
Vanish Seriath: I have no clue what the problem is.
Vanish Seriath: It worked fine earlier.
Vanish Seriath: I’m sorry for the delay.
Johnnie Waugh: By the way couldnt get to TGIB from HG 1.5 earlier
Vanish Seriath: Hmm, not?
Vanish Seriath: What adress did you try?
Johnnie Waugh: dont know why …was using hypergate from Folkcafe on Germangrad and from VWC
Vanish Seriath: Oh.
Vanish Seriath: I think the adresses in the hypergates aren’t updated.
Johnnie Waugh: so just the address that was in the new menu
Vanish Seriath: There are two different ones for tgib now.
Vanish Seriath: tgib.co.uk:9070 is the one for HG 1.5
Johnnie Waugh: 0okay…. what are they? I will copy them
Vanish Seriath: and tgib.co.uk:9069 is the one for HG 1.0
El Sliven enters Pathlandia (now 5 visitors in this region)
Vanish Seriath: Okay, welcome to the meeting, everyone.
Vanish Seriath: Let me kick things off with the usual intro.
Johnnie Waugh: thnaks
Vanish Seriath: The first 30 min of each meeting is spent on introductions and an open discussion.
Vanish Seriath: And for the second 30 min of each meeting, we will make some Hypergrid jumps to visit and explore an interesting location on the Hypergrid.
Vanish Seriath: To start, if you wish, feel free to jump in and say a few words about yourself and your projects/interests in open chat. This is always a good opportunity for networking.
Peter Miller enters Pathlandia (now 6 visitors in this region)
Vanish Seriath: I post a full report and transcript of each meeting’s open chat on my blog, so this is also a chance for you to share information with everyone who reads the blog.
Vanish Seriath: And if you say anything in open chat that you would NOT like to be posted on my blog, please just say so in chat and I will redact your comments.
Vanish Seriath: I am V of tgib.co.uk, I’m Pathfinders replacement for the week.
Vanish Seriath: Welcome.
El Sliven: I am V’s partner, El.
Johnnie Waugh: Johnnie Waugh, resident of akl.nzvwg.org.8002.andelain and other grids…. member of Virtual Life education New Zealand and blogger on slenz.wordpress.com
Johnnie Waugh: almost six years in sl
Vanish Seriath: Wow, six years.
Johnnie Waugh: and three in OpenSims
Vanish Seriath: You’re almost as old as Prok.
stiofain nbmcmedia: im stiofain from belfast in ireland my main project is a 3 sim version of belfast on osgrid im interested in bringing music schools to perform on
El Sliven: Long time in Virtual years!
El Sliven laughs
Johnnie Waugh: Laughing but not as experienced..
Vanish Seriath: Nice Stiofain, how is that project going?
stiofain nbmcmedia: haha gimme a deecade to drag irish musicians from thinking they are cutting edge having an email address and ill tell u
Vanish Seriath laughs.
Vanish Seriath: Does it need to be irish musicians?
Peter Miller: I’m normally Graham btw but can’t seem to get into jokaydiaGRID direct at the moment
stiofain nbmcmedia: no i have run a live music venue in sl for 3 half yrs
Vanish Seriath: Well, I had problems getting here too, Graham.
stiofain nbmcmedia: mostly usa performers
Vanish Seriath: Well, the opensim music scene is still… fledgling.
Vanish Seriath: To say the least.
stiofain nbmcmedia: is still in shell
Johnnie Waugh: yes it is….
El Sliven: seems like it and fashion are on the same time line!
El Sliven laughs
Johnnie Waugh: but interestingly Ive now seen a working combat system in OpenSim developed by Scott diener…warwick falconer of Academe combat training sim i SL.
Vanish Seriath: I think there are several of those, aren’t there?
Strachan Ofarrel: I’m Strachan … Just starting out to get to know OpenSim grids.
Vanish Seriath: Hi Strachan, welcome to the hgac.
Johnnie Waugh: not ones that really work in OS environment …. this one does
Peter Miller: I think more people are beginning to see it as a serious option
Strachan Ofarrel: Same name in Second Life. In Second Life for around 4.5 years.
El Sliven nods at Peter
Peter Miller: I’ve just rented my first hosted sim
El Sliven: I think so too.
Vanish Seriath: Yes, there seems to be another exodus from SL lately.
stiofain nbmcmedia: yes very much peter especially educators
Vanish Seriath: Dunno what the people from Blue Mars are about to do now that it’s basically dead, too.
Johnnie Waugh: yes it sure is….. there is a big restructuing going on there….but they did have pretty graphics’
stiofain nbmcmedia: i was reading bout bluemars today
Peter Miller: well, I couldn’t understand where the new content is going to come from in the absence of continued development on the PC
stiofain nbmcmedia: seem are gonna try for ipad app
Vanish Seriath: I feel sorry for all the people who invested their time and work into it.
Vanish Seriath: Yes.
Vanish Seriath: But I don’t think that’s going anywhere.
Johnnie Waugh: no neither do I…strange lot of people are now accessing Sl via Iphone and Ipad although there are limitations
Vanish Seriath: Hmm.
Vanish Seriath: I don’t quite see the point.
Johnnie Waugh: hmm when they are on the road mainly……. to stay in contact
Vanish Seriath: True.
Johnnie Waugh: not to build or anything like that,….. much to limited…..
Vanish Seriath: But there’s no way to interact with the world from an iphone.
Vanish Seriath: It’s basically an IM-client.
Johnnie Waugh: yes there is one can chat in local and IM …. your avatar is there although sometimes distorted
Johnnie Waugh: and floating but still in world
Peter Miller: There’s another iPad (non-SL) VW here: http://dai.ly/fvhacI
Vanish Seriath: Never heard of that one.
Peter Miller: So many VWs, so little time
stiofain nbmcmedia: anyone get to tryy the sl browser based viewer?
Vanish Seriath: Yes, and nobody really knows if they’re here to stay.
Peter Miller: @stiofain, yes but only at work
Peter Miller: Bandwidth not good enoughat home
stiofain nbmcmedia: i was very impressed with speed and graphics
Peter Miller: I thought it was pretty impressive
Vanish Seriath: Hmm.
Peter Miller: But has the same problem as Blue Mars
Peter Miller: Somebody has to pay for the bandwidth
Vanish Seriath: Yes, true.
Vanish Seriath: And I don’t know if it’ll draw “the masses”
Johnnie Waugh: but bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper
Peter Miller: I saw that the Naali OpenSim viewer will be able to run on Nokia phones
Peter Miller: I had a brief play with it — v different interface
Vanish Seriath: I never tried Naali either.
Peter Miller: Total re-implementation
Vanish Seriath: It’s windows only, which kills it for me.
Peter Miller: Much more game-oriented
Johnnie Waugh: but interesting all the same
Vanish Seriath: True.
Peter Miller: Seems to have an anaglyph 3D option
Peter Miller: V slow on my laptop
Vanish Seriath: I heard it uses OGRE meshes for rendering.
Peter Miller: well, a lot depends on Nokia being able to compete
Vanish Seriath: Mmmh.
Vanish Seriath: Okay, I don’t know how adept you all are at hypergrid.
Vanish Seriath: I know Johnnie and Graham have been with us before.
stiofain nbmcmedia: im a virgin
Vanish Seriath: The hypergrid is basically the ability to teleport between OpenSim grids.
Johnnie Waugh laughs
Vanish Seriath: it enables you to take your inventories with you wherever you go, and get new stuff on remote grids and take it back “home” with you.
stiofain nbmcmedia: i cudnt get here from ossg earlier
Vanish Seriath: There are currently several restrictions to hypergrid.
Vanish Seriath: One being that different OpenSim versions aren’t compatible with one another.
Vanish Seriath: OSGrid uses version 1.5 i7 of Hypergrid
Peter Miller: My new sim does too
Vanish Seriath: Which is incompatible with version 1.0, which jokaydiagrid (the grid we’re on atm) uses.
Peter Miller: Still need multiple avies
Vanish Seriath: Yes.
Johnnie Waugh: Vanish 1.5 and 1.5 i6 are incompatibel too?
Vanish Seriath: 1.5 i6 and 1.5 i7 are incompatible.
Johnnie Waugh: i7
Peter Miller: i6 and i7, yes
Vanish Seriath: MOst grids nowadays are using i6.
Johnnie Waugh: dayam…..
Vanish Seriath: OSGrid, sadly, is among the few that use i7
Johnnie Waugh: is there any plans to develop a linkage…or are they waiting for everyon to go to i7
Vanish Seriath: I have been experimenting lately with a few things that might bridge that gap.
Peter Miller: oooh, do tell…
Vanish Seriath: Basically what I did is this: I installed two OpenSim versions on my server.
Vanish Seriath: They use separate databases, but run identical regions.
stiofain nbmcmedia: seems like am org like the w3c org is needed in a small way
Vanish Seriath: Both enabled the IRC bridge, that links them to the same IRC channel.
Vanish Seriath: So, conversation between the two versions is possible, when people are on the regions.
Vanish Seriath: And the destination is accessible from both HG 1.0 and HG 1.5 i6
Peter Miller: How do you sync the databases?
Vanish Seriath: I also tried using the same database, which didn’t work too well.
Vanish Seriath: I didn’t synch them.
Johnnie Waugh: can you view avatars between versions
Vanish Seriath: No.
Vanish Seriath: I tried using the same db, but the avatars were invisible to each other.
Johnnie Waugh: so how do you know some0one else is there…only throughc hat/
Vanish Seriath: And the objects they rezzed were, too.
Vanish Seriath: Yes.
Johnnie Waugh: the invisible man trick *grin*
Peter Miller: :)
Vanish Seriath: Well, what everyone can do, though…
Vanish Seriath: …and I’m using that solution myself…
Vanish Seriath: …is to run your own standalones with different versions.
Johnnie Waugh: yes
Vanish Seriath: You can run OS on your machine using the same db, just not at the same time.
Vanish Seriath: So depending on where you want to go to, you start one version, or another.
Johnnie Waugh: without chaching or inventory problems?
Vanish Seriath: Yes,
Johnnie Waugh: caching
Vanish Seriath: The only drawback is that avatar appearance is stored independently.
Johnnie Waugh: sounds interesting
Vanish Seriath: So you have different appearances.
Johnnie Waugh: hmmm but that is easy enough to solve
Vanish Seriath: Yes.
Johnnie Waugh: and I dont wash often in here or change clothes much
Vanish Seriath: Hehe.
Peter Miller: lol, tht’s why i’m sitting over here
Vanish Seriath: Let’s have a look at how it works.
Strachan Ofarrel: On the HGAC Web page it says that ReactionGrid plans to upgrade to the latest version of OpenSim sometime early this year. Is this still correct?
Johnnie Waugh: hehehe
Vanish Seriath: Yes, that’s still correct, Strachan.
Vanish Seriath: I askes Pathfinder last time, and he didn’t know a deadline either.
Strachan Ofarrel: Thanks
Vanish Seriath: But they’re working on it.
Vanish Seriath: RG is pretty much the only major grid still using 0.6.9
Johnnie Waugh: Vanish do you know why Osgrid made the leap into the unknown
Vanish Seriath: OSGrid is the test grid for the OpenSimulator project.
Johnnie Waugh: ok understand
Vanish Seriath: They always use the latest version to try out how it works.
Johnnie Waugh: hmm and they knocked it out for a week
Vanish Seriath: Well, the devs there are very dedicated.
stiofain nbmcmedia: yea has been flaky lately
Vanish Seriath: I’m sure they’re as sorry about it as you are.
Johnnie Waugh: laughing ….. was nostalgia time felt like Sl of a few years ago
Vanish Seriath: hehe.
Vanish Seriath: it sure does.
Vanish Seriath: Okay, let’s go to todays destination.

At this point, Pathlandia went down again for a short period of time…

Peter Miller: sorry, crashed
Vanish Seriath: Okay, it seems Pathlandia crashed.
Strachan Ofarrel: Sorry .. crahsed when I stood up
Vanish Seriath: Yes.
Vanish Seriath: The region went down.
Peter Miller: lol, better tel us where we’re headed
Peter Miller: I have to relog after setting Home anyway
Vanish Seriath: Okay, to make a jump, open your map and paste the following adress in the search bar: tgib.co.uk:9069:the path
Vanish Seriath: That’s the first jump

… and Pathlandia went down once more, so we finally (partially) reconciled at TGIB

Vanish Seriath: Sorry.
Peter Miller: np
Strachan Ofarrel: Seems like there’s much crashing and not much TPing going on ;)
Vanish Seriath: I was back in Pathlandia, checking if anyone would show up.
Peter Miller: i thought as much ;)
Vanish Seriath: Okay, from here we go to a region called tgib.
Vanish Seriath: Again, use map search.
Strachan Ofarrel: OK
Peter Miller: I see one green dot
Vanish Seriath: That’s my partner.
Peter Miller: fine
Peter Miller: marvellous :)
Vanish Seriath: Aww.
Vanish Seriath: The ground’s a bit bumpy.
Vanish Seriath: I made this to be a hypergrid meeting place.
Peter Miller: Nice idea
Vanish Seriath: All local chat here is transferred to IRC #tgib.
Vanish Seriath: And from there to the same region on HG 1.5 i6
Vanish Seriath: We were actually celebrating our first anniversary earlier today.
Peter Miller: Nice waves btw — only appreciating them now I’m up here :)
Vanish Seriath: Everything here is copyable.
Vanish Seriath: So feel free to take whatever you need.
Vanish Seriath: Additionally, you can download everything from tgib.co.uk
Peter Miller: yup, I was going to grab some stuff from there
Peter Miller: v useful
Peter Miller: thx
Vanish Seriath: Aw, thanks.
Strachan Ofarrel: Very kind
Vanish Seriath: Well, I’m trying to make all my creations available for everyone.
Vanish Seriath: No matter what grid they’re on.
Peter Miller: wel, i’m kind f out-on-a-limb at the moment
Vanish Seriath: What limb?
Peter Miller: so being able to download is good
Peter Miller: i7
Peter Miller: but hypergrid not started yet
Vanish Seriath: On your standalone?
Peter Miller: i’m hosted at simhost
Vanish Seriath: Ah, okay.
Peter Miller: but standalone, yes
Vanish Seriath: Let’s go up to the inn, shall we?
Peter Miller: you lead :)
Peter Miller: Hi, El — you beat us to it
Vanish Seriath: it seems Strachan crashed.
Peter Miller: too much of that tonight :(
Vanish Seriath: Heh, with every jum there are casualties.
Vanish Seriath: *jump*
Peter Miller: was it better earlier on?
Vanish Seriath: No.
El Sliven: hello there!
Peter Miller: Hi El :)
Vanish Seriath: We couldn’t get into Pathlandia for a while.
Vanish Seriath: And then tgib crashed once.
El Sliven: I just stayed here rather than going and then having to come back…LOL
Vanish Seriath: That kinda wiped out most of the audience.
Peter Miller: hmm
Peter Miller: That’s kind of why I went for the gold-plated simhost approach
Vanish Seriath: Well, I started renting my own dedicated server.
Peter Miller: Though I appreciate that it’s all alpha software etc
Vanish Seriath: I like professional hosting companies, but when you want a lot of regions, it becomes too expensive.
Peter Miller: Yes, I’ll only be there for as long as I need
Peter Miller: Got their New Year discount too — which helped a bit
Vanish Seriath: How much is it?
Peter Miller: $170 is what I’m paying
Vanish Seriath: A month?
Peter Miller: y
Vanish Seriath: Hmm, and what’s the normal price?
Peter Miller: $195
Vanish Seriath: Aw, okay.
Vanish Seriath: Well, it sounds a bit pricey.
Peter Miller: That’s for an 8 GB quad core, 10 MB bandwidth
Vanish Seriath: Ah, okay.
Vanish Seriath: Hehe, that’s a lot of ram.
Peter Miller: They do cheaper
Vanish Seriath: What’re you planning there?
Peter Miller: I’m teaching class
Vanish Seriath: Ah, okay.
Peter Miller: I need to throw hardware at the stability issue
Vanish Seriath: How many avatars are attending?
Peter Miller: Could be up to 30
Peter Miller: Or as low as 15
Vanish Seriath: Ah, okay.
Peter Miller: (scheduling issues)
Vanish Seriath: Yes, that needs lots of ram.
Peter Miller: and a fair wind
Peter Miller: But I feel I’ve done as much as I can
Vanish Seriath: Yes, true.
Vanish Seriath: What are you teaching there?
Peter Miller: well, i’m a microbiologist
Peter Miller: I have some students building
Peter Miller: But I’m also running a couple of sessions
El Sliven: I LOVeD micro in college…:)
Peter Miller: Basically looking at the potential of the platform for scientific collaboration
Peter Miller: With MSc and PhD students
Vanish Seriath: How is OpenSim helping with that?
El Sliven: Had a wonderful teacher
Peter Miller: well, I’m interested in bioinformatics
El Sliven: Do you know Dr. Robert Bauman?
Peter Miller: So I’m illustrating the Many Eyes/crowdsourcing approach
Peter Miller: Doing some visualization
Vanish Seriath: That sounds interesting.
Peter Miller: The name Bauman is familiar butr it could be another guy
Peter Miller: I want to do some simulations too
El Sliven: He finally wrote some books that colleges use….
Peter Miller: and some co-creation
El Sliven: but he was my teacher in college…he was really good.
Peter Miller: That’s it, El :)
Peter Miller: Cool :)
El Sliven: Do you know his book?
Peter Miller: Hmm, a little
El Sliven: I never saw it…I went to work for a college bookstore for awhile an saw it
Peter Miller: Oddly we use a book written by an avie I met in SL
El Sliven: and then realized that it was HIM
Peter Miller: heh :)
El Sliven: I did not know he had published a book to be used in teaching…
El Sliven: but I am glad he did…he was an amazing teacher.
El Sliven: He made something that most people considered really hard…quite enjoyable and fairly easy
Peter Miller: marvellous — and great that you have such good memories
El Sliven nods
Peter Miller: well, if we can organise it, maybe we could meet on my new sim
Peter Miller: kick the tyres, so-to-speak
Vanish Seriath: Sure, that would be nice.
Vanish Seriath: Try if you can enable hypergrid there.
Peter Miller: Nice but awkward ;)
Peter Miller: Um yes. I’ll ask James
Peter Miller: He’s been v patient so far
Peter Miller: (James being the simhost guy)
Vanish Seriath: Ah, okay.
Vanish Seriath: They have several people.
Vanish Seriath: I don’t know them all.
Peter Miller: I guess so
Peter Miller: Anyway’s this is a great sim but I’d best be heading off — work tomorrow etc
Vanish Seriath: Aw, okay.
Vanish Seriath: Well, it’s the same here.
Vanish Seriath: So thanks for coming over.
Peter Miller: Yup, weekend’s never long enough
Peter Miller: well, i’d like to come back some time
Vanish Seriath: Sure, please do.
El Sliven nods
Peter Miller: have a longer look round
Vanish Seriath: And I hope to see you on another meeting of the hgac.
Peter Miller: But til then, have a good week and hopefully see you next Sunday
Peter Miller: heh, yes :)
Vanish Seriath: You too.
El Sliven: Thanks for coming Peter.
Peter Miller: bfn
El Sliven: bye
El Sliven waves

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.