Hypergrid Adventurers Club

I finally made it! And it was worth it. Not without quite a few bumps along the way, but I was able to use my ReactionGrid account to get there.

The end destination is a recreation of a Carthusian monastery. Very cool! You can find the chat logs and the instructional notecard at Pathfinder Lester’s blog, “Be Cunning and Full of Tricks.”

Some of the bumps (for those who are interested in trying it):

  • There are two versions of Open Sim in current, wide use, and they have different versions of the hypergrid teleport. So if you are on OSgrid, you can’t (at this time) do a hypergrid teleport to Reaction Grid or Jokaydia (or any of the places Pathfinder is finding and leading people to). Most of the people in the group today seemed to be using accounts at Jokaydia, but at least two of us were using ReactionGrid accounts. You can create an account in either grid.
  • ReactionGrid Help Island has some instant-teleport arches. One of them goes to Jokaydia, but having taken that teleport, I couldn’t search for Pathlandia or see it on the map. I had to go to Scooter, which was just south of the Jokaydia sim I was in, via double-clicking on the map. Once I was on Scooter, I was able to fly one grid north and one west to Pathlandia. Teleporting via the map from Scooter to Pathlandia crashed me.
  • I couldn’t use the instant gate on Pathlandia, but was able to use the hypergrid coordinates Pathfinder provided to teleport via the map to our intermediate destination. Once there, I was still getting the local chat from Pathlandia. I was also alternating between night and day every few seconds (which the others there were not seeing).

Land available

In light of the coming changes to open space sims, my current open space sims will be consolidated into full sims by the end of the year, at which time new rental parcels will become available. I invite anyone looking for long-term land ownership (one quarter sim or more) to contact me. I offer very attractive terms in a congenial, rustic estate, in exchange for long-term stability from congenial, low-drama tenants.

Sadly, I am likely to relinquish tenancy of Caledon Murdann. (I am certainly going to relinquish it unless the Guvnah decides to consolidate it into a full sim.) Please contact me if you have always dreamt of renting a duchy in Caledon.

I’m sorry, this is bullshit

Sure, it’s nice to see that Jack Linden did actually read the comments in the forums, and it’s kind of cool that he replied to my short comment, but read his response:

SL Forums – View Single Post – Openspace Announcement Discussion with Jack Linden.

And now tell me it’s not a load of crap. A steaming pile of excrement.

This price increase has nothing to do with technical specifications or lag or user experience. This is about Linden Research wanting more money: “the pricing just wasn’t in line with how they are now being used.” Are you telling me that if I have a regular private sim or a parcel on the mainland but don’t put prims, scripts, or avatars on it, you’ll give me a price break? You mean I can rent server space/time, but if I actually use it, then I deserve to pay more?

“We believe these changes are necessary to better account for the increased load, so that we can continue to scale this product *without* making performance worse for everyone.” I’m sorry, but if this is about being able to scale the product, shouldn’t you at least be able to mention some technical improvement the 67% increase in monthly cost will provide? If this was really about poor performance “for everyone,” don’t you think there would be a few more comments in the forum from people who are looking forward to better performance in their open space sims? The vast majority of positive comments in the forum are from people who own regular private sims (by their own admission they do not own open space sims).

“It could be that with the right technical restrictions in place that a truly light use product at lower cost is viable. . . . Clearly for many people large areas of land are more attractive than prim count for example.” No shit? Really? Wow, who would have ever thought of that? Wow, like, isn’t it really amazing that Linden Research, Inc. chose to provide just such a product at the same price point as regular private sims? What a coincidence all those months ago!

“@Otenth Paderborn: Yes, we will provide guidance on what load level is reasonable for Openspaces as soon as we can.” The fact that you can’t provide it now is even more damning than your original post. If you can’t provide a benchmark for what is inappropriate, how can we take anything you say seriously? I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it didn’t cut it when Justice Stewart said it, and it certainly isn’t an appropriate position for Linden Research, Inc.

Gridnaut!

Tonight I received my group membership in the gridnauts, and have successfully TPed between Linden Research-owned simulators and Open Sim simulators owned by others. Yay!