Prince's Maze

Prince Amor:  quite a bit changed since last, with OSGrid closing up etc.. we are setting just over 100 regions, of which 20 are public, the rest are residential.

We met on Maze Grid, Prince's principality since OSgrid went offline for long term maintenance back on 4 March of this year. It's far from being a small place. Alongside the many residential sims, now home to many of those who rented from prince of Amor back on OSGrid, there are twenty that are public spaces, with freebie areas or art and fan builds on them, all worth a visit.

The Welcome region has an open air down to earth feel to it, with places to play and dance and hang out, but also teleports to other points of interest and a large Building Supplies area, where you can quickly pick up anything you're missing. I wondered how Prince has been weathering the recent events.

Prince Amor:   I feel let down, that is pretty well it.  I have 150 users, so I have 100 renters that were all  OSGrid... most made it here though.

Thankfully between social media and word of mouth, it is a lot more difficult these days for a person to remain out of the loop when something big like this happens. Rather like an earthquake, there had been tremors for some little time on OSgrid, giving us all warning. Prince wasn't in Opensim when the last great outage of OSGrid happened, from August 2014 to around February 2015, but he wasn't unprepared for the events of this Spring.

Prince Amor:  This was, for me, the first Big One. Lots of minor ones I weathered along the way.  I would have my renters  make accounts on my Dreamgrid  so when OSGrid went down they could have access to their lands etc.. in December when OSGrid went down then I learned how to do the stand alone so I evolved just in time for the big one

Thirza Ember: so did you get your oars and your renters stuff out in time before the whole thing went down?
Prince Amor:   oars - yes, but .iars were a horrible failure for most part, the ip protections totally broke them making them useless. But the OSGrid admin made the right choice of course. Once that big 6 tb breaks, or whatever size...

Thirza Ember: Really, relying on one grid, no matter who is running it, is kind of risky. People who say it could never happen to them because they take more precautions, sure, but ... hubris alert.

Prince Amor:  that is right and we have seen it again and again with smaller grids,  no matter what they are running. I really didn't lose thing. I know some  totally missed it  but my people did pretty good. That is why I would push my people to have an account with the Dreamgrid and here even but when it happened of course I pushed them as hard as I could. We still have things pop invisible or whatever as they wipe that drive, textures in the stores etc...

Prince of Amor

Thirza Ember: you are now transitioning from landlord of sims on a big grid, to grid owner. That is actually a different role... you have gone from being maintenance guy, to the mayor of the place have you noticed that change yet, how are you coping with the role, and do you like it?

Prince Amor: well the transition was way too much work you know -pretty frantic. But now I am pretty well settled and evolving again  making things better  scripts better, avatars,  stuff and I think all my people are too. You can never make everyone happy regretfully, but that's life. It is a new beginning, to a point.  I always try to be a facilitator.

Thirza Ember: at least you already know everyone

Prince Amor:  yes, and they all know me, and know I do my best. Mayor? No.  I really just help people.

Prince Amor:  This is my medieval sim  it features High LOD  meshes made phantom so you will see no triangles on the main build here when you zoom out.  I also have been bringing in assets from unreal engine on a regular basis. Their license is sound. I give it all away so...  I will never make over 100,000 dollars a year doing this

Thirza Ember: and you won't have the headaches that are associated with someone pulling down 100k in virtual

Prince Amor: well you know the OSGrid thing shows one thing that if you mark your stuff no transfer and no copy your .iar will fail or those that relied on you  will also fail to have your things and then have more work. It costs nothing to upload here -  nothing -   your time sure,  but well if you want paid,  offer your services to others   or if they want to own it totally and not share charge those people,  that is what I do. If someone is like don't share what they had me work on, then I charge them. Why would someone ruin the backups of their things.

Thirza Ember: yes, indeed! it's a practical and a philosophical point you are making

Prince Amor:   and well the world is evolving with ai and all that. Things that used to be worth something are now not worth so much... we are all overwhelmed by free things,  there is not money to be made that way any more.

Prince Amor:  this is my fantasy avatar sim  I have brought in over 500 avatars  from various sources they are all free  things that have questionable licensing well are fan art  because I don't sell them after all... over there I have a meshy ai house and instructions how to bring those avatars here

Thirza Ember: these are all rigged for use?

Prince Amor:  yes, totally, all complete avatars  clothing and all  some better than others. I  started on them over a year ago now, and i have fixed my assets in the stores of what most people have

Prince Amor: having my things in Dreamgrid allowed me to do that thankfully... if the asset was not good when osgrid went down.reamgrid had been around long enough to have the asset proper

Thirza Ember: nice so broken assets weren't a problem

Prince Amor: were hours of work  going back and forth to make the asset good  wearing 40 sets of clothing of things that were set no copy or no transfer about 5000 items, none of them mine - that I made you know -   just stuff we all are used to, Athena etc.. They are there for my residents more than anything,  me I rarely use an avatar made from others any more  seeing me in this is rare...  I tend to be in stuff like this...

Objects in the gif may be larger than they appear

Prince Amor:   I float between Unity's Unreal Engine and  Meshy - which has a good license also. Unreal is awkward and laggy in comparison but their assets are pretty sound, and pbr here now lets you just bring it straight in pretty much,  and again the license is good, so trees, buildings... it is just really beyond comprehension how  much they have there for free. I will never be done really,  here and there I get bored but then I have something catch my eye. AI is very enabling, with scripts etc... I am thankful for that tool has allowed me many things.

We moved on to another sim of Prince's, a Star Trek place, stretching over several regions - hard to take it all in! 

By the way... Would you be interested in joining a project to make an inworld Star trek movie? This has been a long term project of Princes - he already has many assets to facilitate the film, including scripts he obtained with permission in SL, right now he'd like to find actors writers and enthusiastic volunteers willing to work with him in making a truly Opensim Star Trek Fan film - be sure to Friend him on opensimworld or on his grid and ask him for more details. 

In those crucial months back in 2014 when OSGrid was offline, it was not uncommon to hear people express the opinion that OSGrid would never return and if it did, it would be a shadow of its former self. I wondered if Prince shared this view.

Prince Amor:  I don't see any reason why it won't grow again, it is the mother of it all after all, and it is the source of any new upgrades

Thirza Ember: And as far as you and your residents?

Prince Amor:  it will depend.  if a renter wants to put their land back there I will just convert it back, it is easy. I kept it etc... whether or not I can still support them  remains to be seen. it is a beautiful thing run by mostly beautiful people, I invested in them a lot.  it only takes one uninformed person though to lose a supporter

Prince Amor: Thankfully people have that outlet to move out and make it their way  if they have the wherewithal - to learn,  and suffer a while...

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