Hosting4OpenSim, a virtual world hosting company, has announced its grand opening. Founded in December 2022 by three friends from Mexico, the US, and Brazil, the company aims to become the leading provider for OpenSim hosting services.
As part of its launch, the company is offering a deal to the next nine customers who respond, with free setup if they use the coupon code hosting10 when ordering. Setup is normally $50.
Josh Boam
According to Josh Boam, CEO at AviWorlds, and both the CEO and CFO of the new hosting company, Hosting4OpenSim offers a range of services, including full grid setups, private grid setups, money servers, and various plug-ins for OpenSim, including a money server that enables transactions and allows users to buy and sell land and objects in the virtual world.
The money server is compatible with both Podex and Gloebits, Boam told Hypergrid Business.
The system also comes with basic website functionality, he added, including new user registrations.
“We have a custom splash page,” he said. “This page gives you slideshow that you can load with all your favorite pictures. It also includes grid statistics and region information as well as some starting regions.”
The company also provides a web search feature that allows users to view items in their grid from a website and a custom region map placement system to easily find the perfect location for new regions.
Aaron Beck
In addition to Boam, the new hosting company has two other co-founders, Aaron Beck and Alex Silva. Between them, they have over ten years of experience in OpenSim development and server management.
Prices start at $80 per month per private server with a $50 setup fee, that includes 16GB RAM and 200GB SSD M.2 NVMe, 1GB unlimited networking, backups included and root access to the server. For the price, you get two free regions, upgradable to 15 regions at $12.50 per five regions per month, with a $5 setup fee and bulk discounts. Full region rental rates are here and all the grid packages are here.
“We also have a managed hosting package where if you choose not to have anything to do with the grid we will host it and manage everything for you,” Boam said. “This service has a monthly fee that depends on the amount of support requests required and starts out at $25 per month. If the problem is on our end, there is no charge to fix the issue.”
Plus, each new grid comes with unlimited support during the first week for all packages.
“Customer support is a huge part in any business,” Boam said.
There is also a Test Grid up and running for those who want to explore company services.
Virtual Melody: Hosting4OpenSim is ‘on the ball’
One early customer Virtual Melody, is creating a community of live musicians, vocalists, and music lovers. The grid venues are open to the public, but the grid itself is strictly by invitation only and is specifically for musicians and their fans.
Cathie Timian
According to Cathie Timian, the company’s founder, Virtual Melody rents regions to musicians only and offers limited free land to fans and music lovers.
“Music connects us all,” Timian told Hypergrid Business.
Setting up the grid was a quick and easy process, Timian said. She filled out the sign-up form, sent the payment, and the migration to Hosting4OpenSim only took one and a half hours. Timian pays her monthly server fee via PayPal and reports that it is very easy.
Timian chose Hosting4OpenSim.com for its reliable hosting services and the expertise of CEO Josh Boam, whom she had worked with for almost three years when she previously rented land on AviWorlds.
“Josh is a straightforward, honest guy,” says Timian. “He’s respectful and is genuinely concerned with the needs of his customers.”
Timian reports that the company is “on the ball” and is knowledgeable, getting things done quickly and effectively. She has had no issues with the company and would highly recommend it to anyone.
“I’m very happy with their server service and would highly recommend them to anyone,” she said. “I’ve haven’t had any issues with this company yet.”
She had region export files, in the form of OARs, ready to go. The entire process of switching to the new hosting company took 24 hours.
Alex Silva
She had tried another hosting company first, but couldn’t get commerce working. Gloebit, the leading OpenSim payment provider, didn’t respond, and the previous hosting company didn’t know how to install Podex, the top alternative.
“Josh and Alex had me up and running within 24 hours,” she said, “complete with voice and commerce. I had asked for regions to be added and it was done immediately. I also asked for a particular ban placed and it was done immediately.”
There was also a problem with a griefer that was promptly handled, she said. “That Pricilla character also showed up on the grid and we got the MAC address and they added that to their list immediately too.”
“We have a great mall to shop at,” she said. “We have a the farm you can work on if you wish too. We have Fairy Land. We also have the Beach. We also have a game area.”
She said that Boam and his team were always there when they were needed to get things fixed.
“The servers are reliable,” she added.
Gloebit didn’t get back to her about providing virtual currency for the grid, so she opted for Podex instead. “We love them they are so nice. It was easy to fast and easy to install.”
The grid’s hypergrid address is login.abreakfromlife.net:8002.
Samsung, in partnership with Qualcomm and Google, has announced plans to develop a new extended reality product. XR is a term that encompasses virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality technologies.
I’m considering switching back to Samsung if they release a new XR headset. I’m also considering waiting for Google’s version. But if Apple beats them to it, I’ll switch back to Apple. It’ll be tough after more than seven years on Android, but I want to be on the platform that supports the metaverse best.
What we know about the Samsung XR headset so far
While the specifics of Samsung’s XR product have not been revealed, the company’s president and head of mobile experiences, TM Roh, confirmed in an interview with The Washington Post that Qualcomm will handle the chipset, Samsung will manufacture the hardware, and Google will provide the software.
“For the chipset, it is going to be a strategic collaboration with Qualcomm. The hardware will be us,” he said. “For the ecosystem, we were trying to determine which platform to work with, and in the end, we decided that it was going to be Google.”
Google and Qualcomm separately confirmed the partnership on XR. A Google spokeswoman, Kaori Miyake, said, “We’re excited to work with our partners to build a new generation of immersive computing experiences that will further elevate what users can do with Google.” Qualcomm CEO, Cristiano Amon, added, “With the shared expertise from our partners, we have the foundation to make these opportunities a reality and drive the future of the spatial internet.”
Roh also mentioned that Samsung’s XR venture will involve service partnerships with Meta and Microsoft, but declined to provide specific details.
Samsung’s XR announcement comes at a crucial time for the company, as global smartphone shipments declined by 12% in 2022, and the company saw its lowest quarterly profit in years. Roh acknowledged that market demand for smartphones could remain weak for the first half of 2023, but believes that consumers will continue to invest in premium products for the added benefits they provide.
The XR market is expected to be crowded, with Apple widely rumored to reveal its first XR device in the near future, and several companies, including Meta and Microsoft, already offering mixed reality headsets.
Those other headsets haven’t been doing well, though. Microsoft recently said it will lay off 10,000 employees. According to media reports, the layoffs include its entire Mixed Reality Toolkit group and the AltspaceVR team, effectively killing Microsoft’s own Hololens project.
And Facebook has been losing money hand-over-fist on its virtual reality projects.
Meanwhile, Samsung has a rich history in the field of XR. It was one of the first companies to develop VR hardware, starting with the Samsung Gear VR platform in 2014, which was paired with the Galaxy Note 4 phone. Samsung Gear VR was the first high-quality 3DOF mobile VR experience offered to consumers. The company later launched the Odyssey PC VR headset in 2017 and a revised model the following year. However, Samsung has not released a VR product since the launch of the Odyssey+.
Google has also had its share of VR ventures, including the standalone Daydream platform, which it discontinued in 2019.
The next big event for Samsung, Qualcomm, and Google, where more information on the XR hardware partnership may be shared, is Mobile World Congress 2023, which kicks off in Barcelona, Spain on February 27.
I love building in OpenSim, but I don’t love the process of finding or creating textures.
It’s hard to find just the right one, and even harder to figure out its license terms. All those texture packs floating around — are they legitimate? Or are they ripped off from Second Life?
For a while, anytime I went anywhere in real life I’d take pictures of rock walls, brick walls, asphalt, tree bark — anything that I could turn into a texture. Then I’d use Gimp to process the image, in a painstaking and labor-intensive process.
Turns out, my favorite AI image generator — Midjourney — has a tile function that will generate free, unique, seamless textures on demand.
Just type a command like the following:
/imagine flower texture –tile –v 3
The “–tile” command is what makes it seamless, and the “–v 3” command indicates that you want version 3 of the AI model. The latest version, version 4, doesn’t yet support tiles. Though, by the time you read this, it well might.
Here’s one of the results:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Midjourney.)
Here is what it looks like tiled:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Midjourney.)
You really can’t tell where the seams are. The pattern is perfect.
Here is one of the results for the prompt “tree bark texture –tile –v 3“:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Midjourney.)
And here it is again, so you can see what it looks like tiled:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Midjourney.)
Here’s one of the results for the prompt “black white and gray marble –tile –v 3”:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Midjourney.)
And here it is again, tiled:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Midjourney.)
Here’s one of the results for the prompt “bricks –tile –v 3”:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Midjourney.)
And here it is again, tiled:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Midjourney.)
I had a harder time getting it to come up with a water texture. It kept wanting to give me a horizontal view of the water, from the side, instead of a top-down view. It also tried giving me waves instead of tiny ripples.
I tried asking for “water,” “water surface,” “water top down view,” “water ripples clear ocean top down view,” “tiny water ripples on surface of ocean, top-down view,” and “barely visible water ripples on surface of still tropical ocean, top-down view.” No go.
I finally asked for “light blue seamless water texture for second life –tile –v 3.” That worked:
Here it is, tiled:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Midjourney.)
Midjourney offers 25 free images to start with, then the basic plan is $10 a month. I’m on the $30 a month plan, which gives you unlimited images as long as you switch to “relax” mode.
The free, open source alternative: Stable Diffusion
I’m a fan of Midjourney because it’s relatively easy to get something you want that looks great.
You can see how they improved last year in this image progression:
Evolution of Midjourney, from version 1 to version 4. (Images by Maria Korolov via Midjourney.)
But there’s also free, open source alternative — Stable Diffusion — and it also has a tile function.
You can dowload the model and run it on your home computer or in Google Colab to access the functionality, which requires technical skills and, for running it locally, a powerful computer with an Nvidia graphics card.
Fortunately, there are plenty of sites that provide simple front ends for Stable Diffusion-based images. Many offer free plans, with additional features available to those who upgrade.
The images are 1,024 by 1,024 pixels, which is a very good size for textures. The images are easy to generate, and easy to download but it’s not exactly clear what the usage terms are for the free content. You can see all the seamless textures that their users have generated on their community showcase.
If you mouse over the images, you can see the prompts used to create them, and you can then use the same prompts to create your own, unique, versions of the same textures.
For example, I saw a pretty rose quarts texture on the community page, grabbed the prompt — “Realistic Quartz Feminine Rose Gold Marble Texture, hyper realistic, intricate detail, painting, illustration, photograph” — and generated my own version:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Creative Fabrica.)
Here it is, tiled:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Creative Fabrica.)
In fact, many of the low-cost and free online apps that are built on top of Stable Diffusion can provide seamless textures, no technical skills required. Kind of. This isn’t the official tiling function, I don’t think, because the results aren’t always seamless. In my testing, they came out seamless about 90 percent of the time.
For example, here’s the Lexica Art app, and the prompt “water seamless pattern”:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Lexica Art.)
It’s not the water texture I wanted but is, in fact, seamless:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Lexica Art.)
I think it would make for cute wallpaper for a kid’s bedroom. Plus, Lexica Art also gives you very large images — 2,560 pixels square. These are excellent textures.
If you haven’t tried out Lexica Art yet, it’s a lot of fun. You get 100 free images a month, and if you need more, you can upgrade to 1,000 for $8 per month.
Another option is Mage.Space, which gives you an unlimited number of free images. Just add “seamless pattern” to the end of your prompt and ask for square images.
Here’s the image for the prompt “flowers seamless pattern”:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Mage.Space.)
And here it is, tiled, to show that it is, in fact, seamless:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Mage.Space.)
Weirdly, Mage.Space kept giving me warnings for many of my prompts, telling me that “NSFW content is only available for premium members.” Why is a rose quarz texture considered NSWF? Who knows! But rerolling the same prompt did give me results, though it took me several quite a few tries to get something similar to waht Creative Fabrica generated.
Other AI texture platforms
Stable Diffusion isn’t the only way to go.
One free site is Poly, which seems to offer unlimited AI-powered texture generation in a very simple interface. By signing up for a free account, it will also let you save the images you created. But you don’t need to sign up to start creating textures.
It’s a very simple interface, and the texture generation is very fast.
In the screenshot below, I asked for a “colorful stone path” texture:
Another easy-to-use and free AI texture generator is Polycam.
Simplified also offers a free texture generator among its many AI tools, with 1GB of storage. You do have to sign up for an account before using it, but you get unlimited, fast images, using a choice of Stable Diffusion or Dall-E 2 as the AI engine.
Free AI texture sites
You can also use textures that other people have generated.
Free Textures for 3D has a giant collection of hundreds of textures, all free and distributed under the Creative Commons 0 license, which is public domain, meaning that the textures can be used in any way, including commercial.
Another collection of free AI-generated textures is available at Pixela.AI. Most are seamless, but some clearly aren’t, so tile them and check before using.
Stable Diffusion resources for hard-core nerds
If you want to run Stable Diffusion yourself, with all the raw functionality the model offers, I recommend this tutorial. That’s the one I followed to get it running.
I used the Google Colab option because my computer is optimized for word processing. In other words, I only use it to write, so I bought the cheapest piece of junk I could find. (The days of me running OpenSim servers on my home computer are far, far in the past.)
It took me about five minutes from start to finish to get it running and create my first texture:
Note the “Tiling” checkbox at the bottom of the screen. The image it produced for the prompt “second life water texture” was a little on the green side, so I reran it again with “light blue second life water texture.”
Here’s the first result I got:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Stable Diffusion 1.5.)
And here it is, tiled:
(Image by Maria Korolov via Stable Diffusion 1.5.)
That isn’t bad at all. And it didn’t take any time to create.
The default size is 512 by 512, but you can change the sliders all the way up to 2048 by 2048.
Just remember to uncheck the “Tiling” option once you’re no longer looking for seamless textures. Otherwise, your results will look super weird.
I’m currently using Stable Diffusion version 1.5, which is the “classic” version. But there are newer versions coming out all the time, some optimized to look more like Midjourney.
Then, a couple of hours after I did this experiment, my Google Colab version of Stable Diffusion stopped working. Do I care enough about this to trouble shoot? No, no, I don’t — not when there’s plenty of easy, free sites out there I can use.
Last Friday, AltspaceVR announced that will be shutting down its virtual environment in March.
AltspaceVR was a consumer-focused immersive space that could be accessed either via the desktop or through a virtual reality headset. Since its launch in 2016, the platform has hosted big names and quickly became the go-to platform for virtual concerts, stand-up specials, and other metaverse happenings. It was the platform I recommended to people looking to socialize in virtual reality. For me, its biggest downside was that you couldn’t really use it to build your own world. Plus, it was a proprietary system, owned by Microsoft, and didn’t play well with other metaverse platforms.
In its blog post, the company said that it will be focusing on other metaverse-related efforts, such as the launch of Microsoft Mesh, an enterprise-focused metaverse platform.
Except.
In an SEC filing last Wednesday, Microsoft said it will lay off 10,000 employees. According to media reports, the layoffs include its entire Mixed Reality Toolkit group and the AltspaceVR team, effectively killing Microsoft’s own Hololens project.
It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise — nobody’s been able to make any money with the metaverse yet.
In fact, just last week, Congress denied the US Army’s request for $400 million to buy more HoloLens headsets. The reason? More than 80 percent of soldiers reported that they didn’t like using the headset, including “mission-affecting physical impairments” such as headaches, eyestrain, and nausea.
In a report last spring, Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General warned that buying augmented reality systems without user acceptance “could result in wasting up to $21.88 billion in taxpayer funds to field a system that soldiers may not want to use or use as intended.”
Instead of continuing to invest heavily in AR, VR and the metaverse, Microsoft seems to be going all-in on artificial intelligence.
The rise of AI
On Monday, Microsoft announced a “multi billion dollar” investment in OpenAI, the company ChatGPT and Dall-E 2. Microsoft didn’t give the exact number, but news reports from the New York Times and Bloomberg have put it at $10 billion.
And it’s making money. Microsoft’s AI platform, Azure ML, has seen its revenues more than double for each of the five quarters in a row, he said.
(Image by Maria Korolov via Midjourney.)
Last week, Microsoft made its Azure OpenAI service broadly available, he added.
“And already over 200 customers – from KPMG to Al Jazeera – are using it,” he said. “We will soon add support for ChatGPT, enabling customers to use it in their own applications for the first time.”
Microsoft will be the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI, deploying their models across Microsoft’s consumer and enterprise products.
In addition, Microsoft is also behind GitHub Copilot, an AI-powered coding assistant.
“More than one million people have used Copilot to date,” said Nadella. “This quarter, we brought Copilot to businesses, and we’ve seen strong interest and early adoption from companies including Duolingo, Lemonade, and Volkswagen’s CARIAD software group.”
“We fundamentally believe that the next big platform wave, as I said, is going to be AI,” Nadella added.
What about Meta, Google and Apple?
Meanwhile, Meta is continuing to bleed money on its metaverse investments. In its most recent earnings call in October, CFO Dave Wehner said that Reality Labs income was down 49% due to lower Quest 2 sales. And expenses were up 24%.
As a result, Reality Labs income was just $285 million — on expenses of $4 billion.
That’s a loss of $3.7 billion. In just three months. That’s a loss of more than a billion dollars per month.
As of last October, Meta had lost a grand total of $30.7 billion betting on the metaverse. And that number is just going to keep going up.
“We continue to anticipate that Reality Labs operating losses in 2023 will grow significantly year-over-year,” the company said in an SEC filing on Nov. 9.
Meta’s metaverse — its Horizons platform in particular — “obviously has a long way to go before it’s going to be what we aspire for it to be,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the October earnings call.
Google has scaled back its VR ambitions a couple of years ago, ending support for its Daydream platform in 2020. Apple still hasn’t released its long-awaited AR headset.
Overall, global sales of virtual and augmented reality headsets shrank 12 percent in 2022, according to research from CCS Insights, from 11 million units sold in 2021 to 9.6 million in 2022.
In addition to the long-awaited Apple headset, which might come this year, another upcoming bright spot is Sony’s Playstation VR, which is a closed, proprietary gaming system, not really a virtual reality metaverse play.
The company will release a new headset in February, which Omdia predicts will sell 1.6 million units its first year. By comparison, the original Playstation VR headset sold 1.9 million units its first year, back when it was released in 2017.
What does this mean for OpenSim?
I think this is a good news, bad news kind of situation for OpenSim, a free, open source platform for immersive environments.
Today, more than 300 public worlds run on OpenSim, plus thousands of private worlds.
However, most users access OpenSim via desktop software. It does have virtual reality support, to a very limited extent. The server software is optimized for desktops, meaning that it favors rendering graphics as much as possible, even if the frame rate drops a little bit.
For users, this means that they get to see more of the world faster. But for virtual headset wearers, it means that when they turn their heads, the image they see doesn’t keep up.
When your vision doesn’t match what your body is doing, the natural physical reaction is to think that there’s something wrong with your brain. Maybe you ate something poisonous. Maybe you should throw up before it gets worse.
Any disconnect between your body’s physical motion and what your eyes are telling you can cause nausea. It’s hard to grow a user base when your product literally makes your customers throw up.
So what’s the good news?
The good news is that companies are continuing to invest in hardware. Apple, Sony, Meta — they’re still pouring in the cash.
But, with the shuttering of AltspaceVR, and Meta’s continuing struggle to get any kind of traction for its virtual world platform, this creates a window of opportunity for OpenSim.
I don’t know if any developers are reading this, but I do believe that an open source, interconnected platform will, in the long term, be the future of the metaverse.
(Image by Maria Korolov via Midjourney.)
And OpenSim is a great test bed for how it can work. That’s because nearly all OpenSim worlds are interconnected. Avatars can teleport from one world to another, with their appearance, belongings, and friend lists. Even when those worlds are hosted on different servers, and run by different companies. It’s a marvelous bit of engineering that more people should know about.
And OpenSim also has a pool of companies and virtual world operators and content creators — and users — who are committed to an open metaverse.
Can the software itself be adapted to run on virtual reality headsets? Maybe. It would be great if that was the case, and I’d love to see it.
On Nov. 30, OpenAI released a beta of its ChatGPT chatbot to the public — for free. It is currently, hands-down, the best text and code generator out there. Within the first six days, more than a million people signed up to use it.
They’re using it to write working computer code, solve math homework problems, write school essays, even plot and outline entire novels. But, today, we’re going to talk about using it to write press releases.
We get a lot of press releases every day here at Hypergrid Business. Many are extremely well-written, from big PR agencies, and we could easily cut-and-paste them and run as is in the pages of our publication — except that they’re not relevant to our audience.
And we also get announcements from small OpenSim grids and service providers — the people our readers want to hear from most — but these announcements are often written by non-English speakers, aren’t organized well, and are typically just bullet points of information. They need to written up into article format, and that takes time. Too often, they slip through the cracks because we just don’t have the bandwidth to take on the work. If you want to learn more about OpenSim, which is a decentralized, open-source virtual world metaverse, check out my article, What is OpenSim?
So let’s see how you can use ChatGPT to create a readable press release — one that a publication can use with little or no editing. Or that you can upload to your own website, and not be embarrassed by its grammar or style.
Things to keep in mind
Before you start, remember that ChatGPT doesn’t have access to information that happened in the past year — and only has limited understanding of what happened before. Plus, it doesn’t have access to the Internet, so it can’t look anything up.
You have to provide all the information it needs to write the press release.
Maybe a future version of ChatGPT will be able to do more. It is currently running on OpenAI’s GPT 3.5 AI engine, and GPT 4.0 is due out next year. But, for now, be prepared to provide all the info needed for the press release.
ChatGPT can write. And it writes very, very well. But it can’t magically pull quotes and information out of thin air. Well, it can, but those quotes will be made up!
So, first make some notes for yourself of the basic info you’ll want to include in the press release.
This could include:
What is happening. Product release? Big event? New hire? New acquisition? New service? New pricing structure?
When is it happening?
Where is it happening? If on a grid, include the hypergrid address.
Who is doing it? Put your full company name and location here.
Why are they doing it? How will it benefit customers?
How will it work? Or how can customers access it?
Then — and this is super important — find some quotes. This could be a quote from you, yourself. Or it could be a quote from a customer. Don’t make up customer quotes! And if you use a quote from a customer that you found in some other context, such as in a social media post, check with the customer for permission to use it. Some customers will get upset, especially if their quotes are taken out of context, and your media campaign will become a PR disaster.
Announcement info for a new vampire grid
Let’s say that I’m opening a new grid for vampire role play.
Here’s my info:
New Kickstarter campaign
Target — $5,000 for vampire-themed OpenSim grid
Launch — January 15, 2023. Ends 2/15/2023
Who: Acme Ltd.
Where: Acme is based in London. Its hypergrid address is “grid.acme.com:8002”
Why: so that role players interested in vampires have a place to go. plus, land prices are low. it’s the first vampire grid in OpenSim
Quote from Acme CEO Joe Schmoe: “Second Life expensive , vamps popular — ten times the land on our grid fo same price. best customer service.”
Yes, I put typos in my notes above. That was deliberate — so that you can see how ChatGPT cleans every thing up very nicely.
I pasted the info into ChatGPT and hit the little arrow to get it started. The results started coming back immediately.
Screenshot from OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Here’s what ChatGPT came up with:
Acme Ltd. is excited to announce its upcoming Kickstarter campaign, launching on January 15, 2023. The campaign aims to raise $5,000 to create a new vampire-themed OpenSim grid called “VampGrid.”
According to Acme CEO Joe Schmoe, “Second Life can be expensive, and vampires are incredibly popular right now. With VampGrid, we’re offering ten times the land for the same price, plus the best customer service in the virtual world industry.”
VampGrid will be the first vampire-themed grid in OpenSim, providing a unique and immersive experience for role players interested in vampires. In addition, land prices on VampGrid will be low, making it an affordable option for virtual world enthusiasts.
Based in London, Acme can be found at its hypergrid address “grid.acme.com:8002.” The Kickstarter campaign will run until February 15, 2023.
“We’re excited to offer this new, affordable option for virtual world fans, and can’t wait to see what our community creates on VampGrid,” says Schmoe.
It even re-wrote Schmoe’s lousy, badly punctuated, mispelled quote! And it gave the grid a name — VampGrid. That’s not too bad!
And it used Associated Press Style for the date format and for the quote punctuation. Very good. That’s how press releases are supposed to be written.
But let’s make it better. First of all, its guess at the grid is wrong. Let’s say that the real name of our new virtual world is Vampire Grid. Let’s change that. Also, let’s get some quotes from other experts to add in, and some more info from the owner.
Another quote from Schmoe: “our new vampire grid will mk ppl happy. >100 have already pre-registered.”
Quote from Meg Doe, publisher of the Second Life Vampire Research Report: “I estimate that there are over 20,000 role playing vampires in Second Life. But I predict a loss of 2,000 vampires this year, mostly due to high land prices. A well-policed, solidly managed grid with strong content protection measures could attract many of these vampires, and the merchants who serve them.”
Quote from merchant Billy Bob Thorn, known as “Vlad Bloodsucker” in Second Life: “Second Life vamps already bought most stuff they need. Sure, I still sell some product updates. Plus, new players come & want basics. But there isn’t enough business to cover tier I’m considering scaling back or closing completely. On the new grid, nall the vampires need to be outfitted from scratch, but my land rates will be a tenth of what they are now. My new shop will have twice the area of my Second Life outlet -I ll be bringing over all my original contnt.”
I added some typos to those quotes because that’s how people usually send them.
So I’ll give ChatGPT a prompt to fix the name of the grid, and add the three new quotes.
Screenshot from OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Here are the results:
Acme Ltd. is excited to announce its upcoming Kickstarter campaign, launching on January 15, 2023. The campaign aims to raise $5,000 to create a new vampire-themed OpenSim grid called “Vampire Grid.”
According to Acme CEO Joe Schmoe, “Second Life can be expensive, and vampires are incredibly popular right now. With Vampire Grid, we’re offering ten times the land for the same price, plus the best customer service in the virtual world industry. Our new vampire grid will make people happy – over 100 have already pre-registered.”
Vampire Grid will be the first vampire-themed grid in OpenSim, providing a unique and immersive experience for role players interested in vampires. In addition, land prices on Vampire Grid will be low, making it an affordable option for virtual world enthusiasts.
Meg Doe, publisher of the Second Life Vampire Research Report, predicts that “there are over 20,000 role playing vampires in Second Life, but I estimate that there will be a loss of 2,000 vampires this year, mostly due to high land prices. A well-policed, solidly managed grid with strong content protection measures could attract many of these vampires, and the merchants who serve them.”
Billy Bob Thorn, a merchant known as “Vlad Bloodsucker” in Second Life, adds that “Second Life vampires have already bought most of the stuff they need. Sure, I still sell some product updates, and new players come and want the basics. But there isn’t enough business to cover my tier. I’m considering scaling back or closing completely. On the new grid, all the vampires will need to be outfitted from scratch, but my land rates will be a tenth of what they are now. My new shop will have twice the area of my Second Life outlet – I’ll be bringing over all my original content.”
Based in London, Acme can be found at its hypergrid address “grid.acme.com:8002.” The Kickstarter campaign will run until February 15, 2023.
“We’re excited to offer this new, affordable option for virtual world fans, and can’t wait to see what our community creates on Vampire Grid,” says Schmoe.
ChatGPT added in the new quotes, updated the grid name, and generated a new press release.
But it got something wrong — the fact that the vampires will need to be outfitted from scratch on the new grid is a plus for the merchant, not a minus, so I’ll have to replace the “but” with an “and.”
Also, since it changed the quotes from the expert, the merchant, and the CEO, I’ll need to contact all three of those people and make sure that the edited versions are okay with them before I send the press release out or publish it on the company’s website.
But the press release is still missing something — oh yeah, an “about us” section and contact info at the bottom.
Let’s ask ChatGPT to add it in.
Screenshot from OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Here is what it gave me:
About Us:
Acme Ltd. is a virtual world development company based in London. Founded in 2020, the company specializes in creating immersive and engaging experiences for role players and virtual world enthusiasts.
Contact Us:
For more information about our upcoming Kickstarter campaign and Vampire Grid, please contact us at info@acme.com. Our team is available to answer any questions you may have and provide additional details about our project. Thank you for your interest in Acme Ltd. and Vampire Grid.
It filled in some missing info, like the year the company was founded, and it made its best guess about the contact email address. Both of those need to be replaced with actual info. Again, you can do it manually before you publish the press release, or you can have ChatGPT do it. Just type in, “the company was actually founded in 2018 and our contact email address is contact@acme.com and the Kickstarter URL is …” And it will make the changes and redo the press release.
If you don’t like the press release it gave you, type “retry” or hit the “retry” button. If it runs out of steam before finishing it — it’s got a length of 500 words or so for the output — just type “continue” and it will finish the text.
You can see from these examples that ChatGPT has a perfect writing style, but it doesn’t always have all the facts. So make sure that any press release is reviewed for accuracy, ideally by multiple people, before you send it out. And especially double-check the quotes.
With millions of people using ChatGPT, OpenAI is racking up quite the computing bill right now. Sure, it’s getting feedback from users — people can vote ChatGPT’s responses up or down, or tell it that its answers are wrong. And OpenAI will be able to see all the ways in which people are using it, which will help the company identify the top use cases in order to better market the AI model to clients.
But, at some point, the free beta is going to end, and OpenAI will start licensing the tool commercially. You’ll probably see the functionality pop up in tools like Jasper, CopySmith, and CopyAI. And you’ll have to pay for it.
But wait!
Remember how OpenAI came out with Dall-E 2, the AI image generator, last spring? At first, it was a closed beta, then an open beta but pricy. Then Midjourney came out with its own version, with better graphics, and a $30-a-month unlimited plan.
And then Stability AI created its own version of the image-generating AI, Stable Diffusion, and gave it away for free and open source. It spent $600,000, according to a Tweet by founder Emad Mostaque. They released it in August, and you can go download it and run in on your computer, provided you have a good enough processor, and get as many images as you want, for free, with no restrictions or filters of any kind.
Now Mostaque is hinting that Stability AI might come out with a version of ChatGPT next:
And they’re not alone. Non-profit open source organization LAION says they’re already on it:
We, LAION, are already actively working on it. It would be very bad if malicious nation states would get it before the broad academic community would get unrestricted access to a chat GPT like model.
More than 300 valid responses came in for the 13th Annual OpenSim Grid Survey, and Wyldwood Bayou and Littlefield, two write-in grids, received perfect scores from their residents. Craft World and Terra Nova, also write-ins, were close behind.
Meanwhile, Alternate Metaverse deserves a mention at the top of this story. It wasn’t the highest-rated grid, or the grid with the most respondents — it was in second place after AviTron — but it did have the most effusive comments from its residents. Scroll to the bottom of this article to read just some of the praise its residents have heaped on this grid and its owners.
Most years, there’s at least one smaller grid that does well in this user survey, because small startup grids typically have close-knit and supportive communities. Plus, on smaller grids, it’s easier for the grid owners to provide support. On larger grids, support can start lagging behind, people can feel lost in the crowd, and there might be challenges scaling the technology.
Overall scores of the ten grids that had the most responses. (Hypergrid Business data.)
Where do OpenSimmers live and visit?
Between them, the respondents had visited 93 different grids and named 40 different grids as their primary homes.
AviTron was the grid that was home to the most respondents, followed by Alternate Metaverse, Kitely, and OSgrid.
Where do OpenSim users make their home? (Hypergrid Business data.)
We also asked our readers about the grids that they had visited, other than their own home grid.
OSgrid, OpenSim’s largest and oldest grid, was the most visited — 68 percent of our readers had been to that grid, not counting the 8 percent who make it their permanent home. The next most visited was DigiWorldz with 38 percent, followed by Kitely, with 37 percent.
Where do OpenSim users like to travel? (Hypergrid Business data.)
The numbers add up to more than 100 percent because most people have visited more than one grid. In fact, the average OpenSim users has been to three other grids. At least, they could immediately recall the names of three other grids. Several respondents said that the number of grids they visited was “too high to count.”
Most residents said they were very happy with their grids — 93 percent would “absolutely” recommend them to others. Just 5 percent said “maybe” and fewer than 2 percent said they would not recommend.
Technology, support, community, and content
I did not ask people to compare different grids and tell me which one is better. After all, nobody out there has visited all the grids and tried them all out. Instead, what I do every year is ask people what they think about the grid that they spend the most time on.
Typically, people rate their home grid highly. And that makes sense — after all, that’s the grid where they decided to spend their time. That’s why most grids score as 4 and 5, in every category. If people don’t like a grid, they leave and go live somewhere else.
As grids get larger, however, they also get more people who are generally discontented. In addition, larger grids may have problems maintaining their technology or support. As a result, smaller grids often do very well in these annual surveys.
You’ll notice that the difference between grids is often a fraction of a percent, so please do not take these results as pure gospel. Plus, with the relatively small number of users we have in OpenSim, the margin of error is high — one highly dissatisfied resident can skew the results quite a bit.
Technology
This year, when our readers were asked how they would grade their grid’s technology. Littlefield and Wyldwood Bayou had perfect scores, while Utopia Skye was close behind.
Wyldwood Bayou was also the top-scoring grid in last year’s survey, with Utopia Skye in second place.
OSgrid had the lowest for technology. OSgrid is the largest OpenSim grid, allows people to connect regions that they host at home, for free, on their own computers, and all of its management is by a team of volunteers. OSgrid is also the testing ground for new OpenSim features and releases. All these factors combined mean that any particular region might be running slowly on a home Internet connection, or be using an older version of OpenSim.
These survey results also only show how users feel about the technology — not about the effort that the grids have put into their platform. Kitely, for example, has done a great deal of work on custom code, in addition to contributing code fixes back to the community. And OSgrid is where the OpenSim developers do their testing. Neither of these contributions are necessarily reflected in the poll numbers.
How readers rated their home grids on technology. (Hypergrid Business data.)
Support
In support, three grids received perfect scores from their residents — Littlefield, Wyldwood Bayou, and Craft World.
OSgrid scored lowest, but, again, the grid is all volunteer-run and regions are hosted on home computers. And there’s only so much that volunteers can do to help since everybody’s home computer and networking configuration is different.
How readers rated their home grids on support. (Hypergrid Business data.)
Community
For community, Littlefield, Wyldwood Bayou, and Terra Nova had perfect scores, followed closely by Utopia Skye.
How readers rated their home grids on community. (Hypergrid Business data.)
Content
In content, Littlefield and Wyldwood Bayou received perfect scores, followed closely by Craft World and Terra Nova.
How readers rated their home grids on content. (Hypergrid Business data.)
For the latest list of all grids on the OpenSim platform — or some fork of it — check out our Active Grids List.
If you would like to see a full list of results — minus any identifiable information — please email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com.
Additional comments from the respondents
The following are representative comments about the grids. There were more than 130 comments in all, much higher than last year, some of them quite lengthy, and if anyone wants to see them, or use them on their websites, just email me. Again, I won’t include any personally identifiable information.
In addition to leaving out some of the repetitive comments, I’ve also skipped those that had negative personal attacks or that seemed libelous. And, of course, I also edited out any personally identifying information. The comments have also been very lightly edited for spelling and grammar.
“Alternate Metaverse has the nicest people and there seems to always be someone on to chat with. They are also very helpful when you run into a problem. Love being there.”
“Alternate Metaverse is far and away the most fun, supportive, and fair-minded grid I’ve ever been a part of.”
“Alternate Metaverse is the most caring and helpful place that anyone could come to.”
“Alternative Metaverse is home for me.. I am from Second Life, I’ve tried other grids, and AMV is by far the most relaxed… peaceful.. fun.. friendly.. supportive grid I’ve yet to experience… will I invite others to AMV? Yes! I have been — I take my family and friends to the best.”
“AMV is likely the best run grid I’ve been on thus far. When my Sir and I arrived here, it was like we had found where we were meant to be. We have one word for Alternate Metaverse — home.”
“Cliff and Cat make the grid welcoming and fun for everyone!”
“Excellent grid management, very good support and a very active community.”
“Great work — keep doing what you do, guys, you’re better then OSgrid. They lose their assets and try to fix it now for a year. I’m happy in AMV and it’s my preferred location for almost everything OpenSim.”
“I have moved six times in the past six years. AMV has been there when the others fail and crash.”
“I spend almost all of my time here at AMV. I was astounded by the way the grid owners — Cat and Cliff — get involved in all the events here. I am also amazed at the way both Cat and Cliff take a sincere interest in the well-being of their residents and on a one-to-one basis. They sincerely show how much they care for each of their residents by going that extra mile to ensure their happiness, contentment, well-being and utmost safety.They ensure a no-tolerance harassment policy and take us, residents, at face value! Thank you both Cat and Cliff for being the best of the best grid owners around!”
“I have been to other grids and to be honest with you, I have found nothing worthy to even compare with Alternate Metaverse’s quality of virtual life. I see this grid growing in leaps and bounds and I don’t think that will stop anytime soon or at all.”
“I would recommend Alternate Metaverse Grid for having the best service and no grid issues and the grid owner knows his stuff from behind the scenes, also the team are friendly and also its community has fun and outgoing people to hang out with. Plus — the Dinkies have arrived on the Alternate Metaverse Grid so now it is more fun and many new activities for all Dinkies to check out and hangout and feel safe at.”
“I tried a couple of other grids and they were nothing compared to Alternate Metaverse. I have visited a lot too when I hypergrid but nothing compares to AMV. It’s the best by far.”
“Every grid we’ve visited has something to recommend it, but when we landed at Alternate Metaverse Grid we knew we had struck gold.”
“The tech is on par with Second Life — and better, in most cases — the residents are comfortable with themselves and each other and the helpfulness, consideration and camaraderie is real, not just something stated by grid owners who hope it’s going to be that way just because they said so.”
“This is a grid worth visiting because it epitomizes everything good about OpenSim. Superior tech, terrific residents, great events and entertainment and exceptional educational opportunities.”
“The owners, Clifford Hanger and Cataplexia Numbers, have done a first- rate job here and the grid reflects who they are and the care they take with it. To say ‘we’re happy here’ is such an understatement. To say ‘we’re finally home’ sums it up so much better.”
“One of the best parts about AMV is that the owners of the grid live here with us. They are part of the entertainment, the building, the event coordination, everything. The friendly community adds to its charm, there are people here ready to participate in every type of activity you can imagine! Clan’s Band makes our home here, and we have been — almost — everywhere in the metaverse!”
“The grid owners and the community itself truly cares about each other on AMV. No better place to be.”
“They have some good learning opportunities at Koryphon Academy.”
“Alternate Metaverse and Wyldwood Bayou are by far the two very best grids in OpenSim. Aesthetically, technically, community, entertainment.”
“Alternate Metaverse Grid is technical 10/10. For builders and scripters. Entertainment for everybody, amazing regions to visit and amazing staff and residents.”
“Avitron el mejor lugar.” [Google translate: “Avitron is the best place.”]
“Eu vim do Second Life e graças a um amigo conheci o AviTron, nunca estive tão feliz, em um mundo sem a ganância do dinheiro, sobra tempo para a fantasia a amizade desfrutando de lugares lindos com festas maravilhosas. Problemas tem uma vez ou outra, mas vale a pena por cada alegria de estar no Avitron. Fica meu agradecimento. Patricia Maia.” [Google translate: “I came from Second Life and thanks to a friend I found AviTron. I’ve never been so happy. In a world without the greed of money, there’s time left for fantasy, friendship, enjoying beautiful places with wonderful parties. Problems have one time or another , but it’s worth it for every joy of being at Avitron. I would like to thank you.”]
“I love AviTron.”
“I’m slowly leaving AviTron, due to the owner’s greed and mistreatment.”
“Todas las cuadriculas son buenas, cada una tiene su fantasía y su encanto, gracias a todas está personas que nos hacen una segunda vida mejor, son excelentes.” [Google translate: “All the grids are good, each one has its fantasy and its charm, thanks to all these people who give us a better second life, they are excellent.”]
“I found out that scripts are disabled when the items is taken off DigiWorldz unless they are full perm. That killed my business. Population on just DigiWorldz is too small to make any money. No ability to create OAR files like on Discovery Grid and Kitely. Very poor interface for land owners. This grid seems pretty stagnant. No meetings with owner to discuss needs and the grid direction like on Discovery and Kitely. No apparent growth in technology unlike Discovery and Kitely. I am probably going to leave.”
“Discovery Grid is one of only a select handful of grids I trust the grid owner and that can handle my high-end fireworks displays – support has always been top notch and very fast, extremely pro-active in the fight against the infestation of botted content, and I also consider grid owner, Balpien Hammerer, a friend.”
“Discovery is an up and coming grid that really goes all out to make their residents feel at home.”
“I really like Discovery Grid, I feel really welcomed there. Also they’re always improving things there to make the experience there even more enjoyable!”
“Small community, but very friendly and helpful. Good communication from the owner.”
“Genesis is a new grid established 03/30/2022 by Metal Tango and Lavia Lavine, Tango’s mother in real life. Though it was meant to be primarily a role play grid, it has recently accepted a group of refugees from a grid that shut down, led by Thundergod Thor who secured them regions on Genesis.
“I am building or I should say, rebuilding, Land of Xzar on a large variable-sized region, which is a visual of a novel I am writing and when completed, visitors will be able to have an adventure, while learning the story. A huge shopping center is being built with original creations from grid members as well as quality stuff picked up from everywhere meant to be shared. From Viking villages to Starfleet Command Posts, the newly arrived builders are hammering away and we intend on making this exclusive grid — membership is strictly vetted — one of the best homes for people to spend time in, as it isn’t just a grid of random people. On this grid, we are family. Besides being unique in that there are two factions of people inhabiting this grid, some have become friends with the newcomers, and we will be having regular meetings to include both groups so we know who is who and belongs. We may be a small grid, but to us, we are a rising star, and I am so very thankful, I was invited to join.”
“There are some amazing creations, fun places, respectful people, and some really beautiful environments. HiddenDreams — growing slowly — has a nice balance of all those traits seen in glances as it develops. I am happy and excited to be at Hidden Dreams grid.”
“I love Kitely, not only because of it’s amazing and kind community but also because the grid owners are so involved and helpful. I also like that it has a marketplace because I’m a creator and a merchant. I recommend Kitely to everyone.”
“I like Kitely for the marketplace and the friendly, welcoming residents, admins, and owner. The only reason I only gave it 4 out of 5 for “Concurrency, stability, & feature set” is because you can’t have a single 256×256 region and put it next to another 256×256 region, and if you do get the advertised single, two-week-trial region, it’s $15 per month for 15,000 prims, while for $5 more, you get 60,000 prims but have to accept a 2×2. A 1×1 is enough to terraform — I don’t like dealing with variable-sized regions, not being able to put individual OARs on it all at once, and the way you can only texture the ground in the southwest corner. At least, that’s been my negative experience with VAR regions. But I’m renting from someone else who deals with all that stuff for me at a very affordable price.”
“I’ve been represented by the same avatar in OpenSim since 2008. I chose Kitely early on for the same reasons I returned to Kitely this past year after taking a long vacation from Second Life or OpenSim. While I was gone I used Unity and UnReal platforms and I spent time completely off the grids relearning watercolor, acrylics, textiles and the brush. While other grids in OpenSim offered this or that, my foremost reason for choosing Kitely — after experimenting with other OpenSim grids — is convenience, consistency, service and price.”
“Ilan Tochner went above and beyond helping me get established and welcomed in the community. It’s because of his assistance I have a private world in Kitely.”
“From being gifted Fluttering Wings by Shandon Loring and told where I can can buy fifties memorabilia, Koshari Mahana and the possibility of having a micro avatar built, Veritas McMaster.”
“I owe Kitely and those who live there my loyalties and support….thank you, thank you! I never thought at fifty one, this old girl could be taught new tricks but thanks to Blender’s Buddies, Mike Lorrey, Kayaker Magic, Original Ruth, Webby Merlin and Clan, I’m in school and learning something new. Its mind blowing just how big the grid really is.”
“Kitely is run with exceptional professionalism.”
“Kitely is the best by far for its moral climate and safety given to families with children. I enjoy not being treated like a piece of meat, but rather treated with respect . I wont trade this community for any other. Now as far as content , its good but always room for improvements. Smiles over all Kitely is the best.”
“Love Kitely great people lotz of fun.”
“Most reliable so far.”
“Super good to test constructions, support can’t be better, most important if copied stuff is found, this is handled in a extremely short period of time.”
“Great friendly place to hang out with friends great music.”
“Littlefield has the best infrastructure of any grid. The admins are attentive, supportive and professional. They make sure that the community is the best. Littlefield Grid rocks!”
“Littlefield is the best for community and is amazingly well run.”
“No other grid has the BDSM content and community that Littlefield has. The admin staff is outstanding and it’s the best running grid out there. No lag, great content, great support, and a great community!”
“The people here are absolutely the best! I can get help immediately when I ask for it, and they are always there when I need them! Great group of people who are always having fun and really care about their communtity!”
“This grid has the best community and support! They bend over backward to assist their users and now that they have upgraded to 9.2 the speed of the grid is unbelievable! I couldn’t be happier to call Littlefield my home!”
“I like the aesthetic and also enjoy helping create various audio content for Mobius Grid. It’d be great if more people tried the place out.”
“Mobius Grid is the best grid for content, with it’s stylish Sonic-styled regions and free cartoon avatars, and the community is friendly, but I think OpenSim in general needs a content overhaul.”
My personal grid
“I chose to start my own grid and now I have my server, I can build as much as I want and I still save money. I have never been happier. Now that’s true freedom on the grid for creativity.”
“This grid is a hobby. I’m thrilled when people stop by and look around.”
“Different grids have different settings, they come and go so it’s hard to define which you spend most time on. I run my own mini grid too, but it gets taken down just as easily. The hypergrid would benefit from landmarks working like in Second Life and being able to hop from one grid to another no matter what.”
“This is a good grid but there are a lot of nasty people who spread lies and rumors because they have no lives and nothing better to do with their time. Other than this, the grid is good.”
“Gosto mais a opensim da terra nova grid porque tenho boas pessoas para fazer amizades e conversar brincar e fazer outra coisa de diversao.” [Google translate: “I like opensim from terra nova grid better because I have good people to make friends and talk to play and do something else for fun.”]
“I Go to many other places but the Terra Nova Grid is the best of the best for me. Very happy place and people.
“I love Terra Nova grid and I also love OSgrid, where I have an island.”
“It has varieties of things for fun and lots of parties.”
“Me sinto super bem em terra nova todos são bem amigos prontos a ajudar um ao outro todos empenhados e ajudar.” [Google translate: “I feel really good in Terra Nova. Everyone is very friendly ready to help each other, everyone committed and helping.”]
“Terra Nova e exelente lugar muito bom ,pessoal la sao maravilhosa começando pelos donos da grid sao 10, gosto muito de Terra nova eles estao de parabens.” [Google translate: “Terra Nova is an excellent place, very good, the people there are wonderful, starting with the owners of the grid are a 10. I really like Terra Nova, they are to be congratulated.”]
“The grid works 24 hours a day, every day of the week, with frequent backups to maintain the entire integrity of the islands and residents.”
“Terra Nova Grid the best at the moment.”
“Terra Nova Grid, o melhor em recepção, o melhor local de paz.” [Google translate: “Terra Nova Grid, the best in welcoming, the best place of peace.”]
“The activities we have, the parties, combat events among others… and the reception.”
“Utopia Skye Grid is one of only a select handful of grids I trust the grid owner and that can handle my high-end fireworks displays – support is very prompt and professional, the grid is extremely pro-active in the fight against the infestation of botted content, and I also consider grid owners, Mike Chase and Calliope Andel, friends.”
“Anyone who used to be on InWorldz should check out Utopia Skye. Building a real community here.”
“At Utopia Skye, I found a home and friends. I found a place where i could let my creativity loose.”
“Really love their philosophy and ethical values.”
“The owners, Calli and Mike, have gone above and beyond to offer me friendship and a sincere sense of kindness. It seems clear that they care for their residents beyond the ‘Oh I love you cause I want my grid to grow.’ It’s a very comforting feeling when you know your grid owners are not there to use you. I feel at home.”
“Utopia Skye Grid is run by people that care about the community and its residents — full stop. At the technology helm is Mike Chase, leader of the NGC project which focuses on security and stability in the virtual world’s space which creates a trusted environment. Many grids now run the software he has fixed, or added enhancements to, which stems from the OpenSim core codebase. With the changes he’s made, Utopia Skye grid — and any other grid running this software — enjoys more security and increased functionality as well as a stable operating base. On top of that, as we’ve grown over the years, we’ve created a welcoming environment, increased the holistic offerings that we’ve had since inception and worked with special needs groups to create safe spaces. One of the biggest tenets of Utopia Skye Grid is the respect for content and the merchants who create it. And as far as our customers go, we are always available to them in several ways. We provide resources, compassion, technology and the result is community. I would not be anywhere else.”
“Great people, great community, great support. They say when you’re here you’re family and they mean it.”
“Wonderful group of people, great role players.”
“Wyldwood Bayou is an amazing grid with wonderful people, quality original builds, great role play, stellar support, and some of the best entertainment on the hypergrid.”
“Wyldwood Bayou Grid is a small community of friends dedicated to providing excellent music venues, roleplay venues, exploration and fun on a non-commercial grid. It’s a fantastic, welcoming place full of really good folks and a great destination if you are looking for hospitality and entertainment. They have a calendar of their events on their website so you don’t miss anything!”
“Wyldwood Bayou has a close knit and warm community, great music events and two active roleplay groups. There is lots to explore and great people to hang out with.”
“Wyldwood Bayou is a friendly place with great music, an adventure park, and fun roleplay.”
The Metropolis grid will shut down on midnight on June 30. But before one of the oldest OpenSim grids closes for good, it will be the site of the premiere performance of a play by Reiner Schneeberger.
The play is titled “The Art Giantess Is The Work: Thea von Harbou,” and will be performed in English, with German subtitles. It will start at 1 p.m. Pacific time, or 10 p.m. German time on the Futurelab region.
The hypergrid address is metro.land:8002:futurelab.
Schneeberger is an artist who is known as “Art Blue” in-world and the play is inspired by the classic sci-fi Fritz Lang film Metropolis. One of the characters in the film is a robot version of a factory worker named Maria.
(Image courtesy Reiner Schneeberger.)
In the play, this robot Maria has the chance to become the first independent AI in the history of humanity, Schneeberger said in a press release.
The intermission will feature a Mondrian art machine originally created by Herbert Franke and recoded by Daniel Jung, also known as Art Eames in-world.
Thea von Harbou, who wrote the original novel on which the movie is based, will be revealed as the Great Coder, said Schneeberger. The role of Thea von Harbou will be played by Kisma Stepanich-Reidling, also known as Juliette Surreal-D in-world.
(Image courtesy Reiner Schneeberger.)
“The play combines the role of color in art and links to various artists from the field of Pop Art, Concrete Art and Conceptual art,” said Schneeberger. “Names that are associated with these art forms are Victor Vasarely, Piet Mondrian and Sol LeWitt. The stage that is used for The Art Giantess Is The Work was originally created for the 25th anniversary of Snow Crash.”
Snow Crash is a novel by Neal Stephenson. Published in 1992, it predicted the metaverse.
(Image courtesy Reiner Schneeberger.)
The stage is located inside a gigantic egg that was created for the Immersivia at Santorini Biennale 2018 festival. The egg is now placed on a floating chair that is carried over space and time by the Cloud Guide, a creation by OpenSim artist Cherry Manga.
“All friends of Art Blue who were born and bred in Metropolis are honored by their name tags as coded witnesses for the closing performance,” said Schneeberger.
(Image courtesy Reiner Schneeberger.)
The sim Futurelab, stage and egg included, has become part of the art conservation project The Upload Museum, which features OpenSim art, and has locations in Craft World and OSgrid.
(AI-generated illustration based on image via Pixabay.)
You can edit the finished file to fix pronunciation mistakes and then download the audiobook file and use it anywhere you want — you own it.
I’ve long been interested in AI-powered voices for OpenSim NPCs. This isn’t quite the same thing. But I can see grid owners who want to have audiobook areas — where you can sit in a nice place and listen to an audiobook — that this is a way to do it. Say, you have a collection of stories set in your virtual world. You can have a display, or an avatar, read them out loud to you.
Google also has an API — an online service that reads any text with an AI voice. You can use this service to have a computer program turn any text into speech. Say, for example, to power an NPC’s voice. But using it requires programming skills — and it costs money.
It would be cool if a grid owner or a hosting company offered a text-to-speech service for in-world NPCs as an add-on feature for organizations that rent land from them.
Is anyone out there doing anything like that? Let me know!
Just like Brandon Sanderson, I, too, have been busy during this pandemic. In fact, I’ve written more than ten new books. Take that, Sanderson!
Okay, most of them are really short. His books are 400 pages long. My books are shorter. Krim Deeds, for example, is 150 pages.
But, on the plus side, you don’t have to give me millions of dollars for me to publish them — or wait until next year to read them.
So if you’re interested in a funny book about the metaverse, with a little murder mystery in it, check out Krim Deeds.
If you’d like a free review copy, or are just a loyal reader and would like a copy for free, email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com and I’ll send it to you. All I ask is that you leave an honest review. And yes, I do mean honest — I learn as much from the bad ones as the good ones.
My first two books are also out.
Krim Times, which is 70 pages long, is just 99 cents — and it’s free to read if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber.
The second book, The Lost King of Krim, is the first one starring Ellison Davo. He’s trying to find a missing person.
The fourth book, Krim Cross, is currently being edited, but you can read an early preview version of it here. And if you find any typos or plot holes — please let me know in the comments or email me!
All of these books are set in the near future, where virtual reality has become indistinguishable from real life. In fact, sometimes, the virtual world is actually more real than the real one. In the real one, people have apps that control their facial expressions, holograms have replaced street signs and Zoom meetings, and we finally have flying cars. But on Krim, which is set roughly in the 1500s, there’s none of that.
The other thing about my vision of the future? If something happens to your physical body, you can continue living online. And since most of what people do is already virtual, for many people, their lives don’t change much at all.
I was inspired to write this when a few years ago I had a slipped disk that eventually required spinal surgery and, for a few months, I could barely walk. I spent the time on the couch, with my computer. And I discovered that my life just went on as before. I still did my day job, still ran my blog, still read books, still watched TV. It was a little sad to find out how boring my life now was. After all, I used to be a war correspondent! But you know what? It was my life, and I liked it. And the fact that I could continue with it, even when partially paralyzed, was actually encouraging. No matter what happens, as long as I have my mind, I’ll be fine. And if I don’t have my mind — well, I won’t care then, will I?
The pandemic brought all that back. Sure, I could walk, but I couldn’t go anywhere. My life moved fully online again. But, this time, so did everyone else’s.
The online world is now the real world. It’s where we work, where we learn, where we socialize, and where we play.
It’s not a bad thing. It’s not a dystopia. There are bad aspects to it, sure, but there are even more good ones.
I don’t believe that a single company will dominate the metaverse. I think that many will try, and there will be some 900-pound gorillas, but that there will also be room for a lot of other options.
Today, a few giants own the highest-trafficked websites. But there are currently 2 billion websites in the world. According to the latest global Internet snapshot, the average person spent around 7 hours online as of last fall — about two and half hours of it on social media. But the rest was distributed between various streaming services, news, video games, search engines, work apps, and all the other stuff that people do online.
I think the same will be true in the future. A few global giants will be battling it out for the top spots, with new contenders constantly nipping at their heels. Meanwhile, there will be millions — maybe billions — of other virtual worlds. I believe we’ll be able to travel between them, just like we can switch from one website to another.
Or teleport from one OpenSim grid to another.
I personally am looking forward to our virtual future.
Anyway, check out my books, leave reviews, and sign up for my newsletter. If you want to read all my upcoming books, for free, as I’m writing them, check out my Krim World website. I post a new installment every weekday.
(Image courtesy Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education.)
The educational play “We Are Going to Lviv” is back for a single performance tonight on the Meta region of the OpenSim Community Conference grid.
The trip was originally part of the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education 2022 conference and is an artistic journey that spans the past and future of Ukraine with a focus on Lviv, the main city in western Ukraine.
The hypergrid address is cc.opensimulator.org:8002:Meta and the event begins at 10 a.m. Pacific time this morning, April 12.
The visitors will pass various stations, all of them giving a political statements related to Lviv, also known under its historical name Lemberg.
(Image courtesy Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education.)
“‘We Are Going to Lviv’ starts with the stone 10-tons of suffering by Alexander Schwarz, the last survivor of the Lviv/Lemberg World War II concentration camp,” said Reiner Schneeberger, also known as Art Blue in-world. “Then the audience experiences a transformation of the stone to 25 smaller one representing the causalities of the first bombing of Lviv in the Ukrainian war. ‘Art is Mainly a Political Act’ is the next station and refers to Immersivia at Santorini Biennale 2016 where Greece fell into a financial crisis with a horrible impact on the environment and public suffering. After these quite devastating elements the trip heads to outer space and the asteroid 1704 Ukraina, then the Beer Museum at Lviv, and finally, at the last station, we meet the president of Ukraine and his cabinet.”
The primary goal of this trip is to spread the knowledge of creating immersive theatrical plays, Schneeberger told Hypergrid Business.
The first presentation of the Uplift was enthusiastically received so the VWBPE asked for an encore, he added.
This time the presentation will include a chat dialogue via Easy Speak so people with impaired hearing can fully participate in the experience. To support the understanding upfront a short video was created showing the key elements of the concept of an Uplift.
“Art Blue took our avatars up and into a number of installations all connected to the Ukrainian town Lvivi –Leopoli in Italian — created by a number of artists,” wrote Lucia Bartolotti after she attended the first show on March 22. “It was weird to be taken along and listen to the description of some symbols of the cultural heritage of Lviv, hearing at the same time the whistles and thuds of bombs falling in the background. And I am painfully aware that I can lightly use the word weird while somebody else is experiencing the real thing in their body and flesh, alas.”
