In the Zone

 Zone Nations grid was our second stop this week, for the opening Safari of 2023, and our host was Druskus, who welcomed us to his fantasy sim HG Welcome along with Fiona Saiman, Cleopatra Abu, Ares Kytori who all created a great party atmosphere for us right off the bat.  

The group arrives at Zone Nations. Photo by Fitheach Eun

Druskus gave us some info about the grid and himself - he told us he manages both the Grid and the utilities, he is an Italian who works in the IT field. In the OpenSource world "he is renowned in the beautiful country for his web activities in the JOOMLA and has been mentioned in several books by the Hoeply publishing house on intermediate-level technical texts related to JOOMLA! and is considered a real reference, at the Italian level, for the implementation of Communities and Social Networks."

Thirza Ember: anyone here familiar with Joomla?

Setting the Tone

 While community is at the heart of the Safari experience, we also aim for quality, and our kick-off event for the first season of 2023 really set the tone. Lorin Tone, and Alia Soulstar, two names that convey a sense of excellence. The build? An immersive experience based on the film 2001 A Space Odyssey.

This is opensim artistry at its best.  Not a rip-off replica, but a multi sensory, walkable meditation on a much loved and discussed classic, spread over a VAR that in SL would cost you in tier something like the rent of a small house. 

Lorin Tone

There were about 20 of us on 3rd Rock Grid to meet our host and learn the story behind the build. The fun starts in a dome at ground level, where there is a warning that if you don't do well around flashing optical effects, this build might not be for you. The address, is of course, at the end of this post.

Back in Busy-ness

 Safari trips return tomorrow Wednesday 4 January at the usual time 12 noon Pacific (SLT) with another ten week season of two hour, two destination events. Busy busy!

Once again, we will be going to a whole range of different grids, and exploring many different themes - meeting people interested in art, tech, and community, and willing to share their builds and projects with us all.  To know more about events ahead of time, you can check out the following social media - Discord, MeWe, Facebook, and Opensimworld - usually events are advertised two or three days in advance. As usual we depart from the Clubhouse, join us there just before 12 noon to get last minute info and LMs,  hg.osgrid.org:80:hg safari

Ta ta, 22

It's that time of year when there are retrospectives everywhere... so here's one about Opensim. 

Plenty more things happened than the few that are listed here, so if you have a special memory of an Opensim milestone from 2022 that is not mentioned here, go ahead and drop it in the comments.

Time flies - or does it? over on Sauce, Aire Mille Flux

Opensim has continued to grow in 2022, in every way.

A Safari Year

 What a year it's been! The Safari started up in January, in the usual timeslot, Wednesdays from 12 noon SLT, but with a new sim on OSGrid courtesy of Ange Menges. The immediate response by old fans and new of the weekly group hypergridding concept was great - thank you all. 

Prodyck, Lux, Frank and Truelie

The more familiar clubhouse on Francogrid had become unworkable - just teleporting to the grid had become difficult, and regions would often be unavailable for days. The heart of the problem was an issue with server hosts, and as much as Francogrid was the home of the Safari, it seemed unlikely to have a future there.

For that reason, I got busy immediately with porting most of the Safari's Francogrid assets over to other grids. 

Aphra, Cherry, Lifted Pixel, and Mal

It was a time consuming process, with permissions and scripts playing up a lot of the time due to

Mouse Look

 If you like ice and mice and gnomes and Hunts with useful gifts, then the upcoming OSGrid hunt by Nani Ferguson and Ange Menges - an opensim season stretching back a decade! - is for you.

The sim's name is Khione, a wintry figure from Greek Mythology - daughter of an Athenian princess and the North Wind - who has risen to fame thanks to the Percy Jackson novels. But let's stick to openim ... this Hunt as always begins with a little backstory and aHUD, supplied by the Snowman.Use the HUD to find the next place to go. 

Bugged out

You've got one. We all do.

It's not a Big Mac, and it's not an Apple Mac. It's not even a rain mac.

But it is a MAC. 

This is the definition by some dudes at Bluecat  ...  Either you already know this, or else you don't care. Why should you? Well, ordinarily, no reason, but for your hypergridding pleasure it may be at issue. Because people are getting banned.

Take the lovely Eva Noir, the least bannable person in opensim, probably. Sweet, creative, helpful, respectful of all. 

Yet she got the heave-ho from a grid I won't mention (there were LoTR elements to the build, so that leaves the field wide open) because I'm at my legal limit of 'European dramedy' this week.

Those of us who get a lot of haters and dufuses in our Chat would probably just shake the dust from our feet and move on at the mere mention of being banned/blocked, but -dear grid owners- please take a moment to think before you just ban the ass of some poor soul. They may be completely innocent, and the experience of being banned can be quite traumatic. 

You're under a lot of stress, sure, but let's try to be civil.

Anyway, Eva reported this situation to Licu Rau, opensim guru and owner of Craft grid, and it turns out that, thanks to some kind of bug going around, multiple people are showing up as having the exact same MAC - physical address. So if you travel with a pal, as Eva did, both of you appear to be on the same machine. This of course raises red flags to a grid owner trying to deal with the constant threat of griefers. 

Licu very correctly opened a MANTIS on the subject. Go here to read all about it.

Wrong mantis

Let us pray.