Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Safari gets a Fair Shake

       Two destinations this week, and both of them are about connecting and sharing across grids. Two hosts, Satyr Gator and Ozwell Wayfarer, both of them keen builders who have done that extraordinary thing, they have looked up from their own work and beyond their own creativity, and decided to do something for the greater good.
Ozwell Wayfarer and Satyr Gator
          Our first stop was on OSGrid, Satyr Gator's sim opensimworld full HG Addresses at the end, as usual. 
        This is a lovely imaginative build where you can find the famous beacons available - the beacon you'll need to add your grid to the opensimworld.com website which allows people to find your region, club, shop or institution in the massive universe of ... well, open sim worlds, there's really no other way to put it. 

        Get your beacon, but explore the rest of the region too, there are NPCs and spaceships and a lovely psychedelic dance floor. But for our group, there was - let's say, a certain amount of lag.
Lucy Afarensis: drifting about...dreamy
Jessica Pixel: i'm just floating in space listening to the region radio
Mike Townsend: I am stuck in some sort of Limbo land watching the stars
Thirza Ember: OK guys - the region is not able to take the crowd, so let's all go to LBSA on osgrid, where we will meet up with Satyr!
Satyr Gator: woow. that was a nightmare !
Fuschia Nightfire: that's what we do!
Satyr Gator: that was dangerous!
Jessica Pixel: it's always exciting with safari
Thirza Ember: sometimes we completely crash the sim
Lucy Afarensis: Chalk up another one
Jessica Pixel:...also if you can dance, you know we'll be dancing
Satyr Gator: sorry guys, the server cannot handle a lot of traffic
James Atlloud: After everyone left all the objects rezzed.  But it was so lonely.
Jessica Pixel: don't worry about it stayr, most places can't handle us ;]
        We began to dance much to the bemusement of the folks chilling on LBSA. So ... how did Satyr come up with the website idea? Was it difficult?

Satyr Gator: No, it wasn't hard. coding and stuff, the hard part was to figure out how to make it easy to use. Actually I thought someone might have made it before me. but I searched and I couldn't find anything similar
Jessica.Pixel: I'm very surprised it took this long to make a system like opensimworld
Mike Townsend: Yes me too. You're doing a great job there Satyr
Jessica Pixel: i think more people just need to start using it, start listing their events there
 Mike Townsend: Yes Thirza that's the important thing. It isn't tied to any one grid or influenced by any grid
Satyr Gator: yeah exactly. it would be pointless to make it for a specific grid
Jessica Pixel: do you have any numbers as far as growth? are lots of people still adding their regions? have newly added regions tapered off?
Satyr Gator: well there are about 800 regions registered, but only ~350 beacons are active
Fuschia Nightfire: the website says LBSA is currently the most popular region with 23 users
Satyr Gator: yes we have a beacon that you rez in your region and it reports how many active visitors are on your regions on our website.

Jessica.Pixel: I love that you can make a little photo slideshow on your region page, I upload periodic screenshots on how my region is growing
Satyr Gator: yep I like when people add photos of their regions. it's like a web profile for your region
Thirza Ember: I'm curious which grid uses it most
Satyr Gator: 183 regions osgrid ,125 metropolis, and 63 Great Canadian. those are the big winners ;)
Mal Burns: yes - lot in Canada
The openisimworld wesite

Thirza Ember: Is it true you're quite new to opensim, Gator?
Satyr Gator: Yes, I actually found out about the whole thing last summer when osgrid was dead. I'm a builder mostly so I loved it
Jessica.Pixel: wow you learn quick :D

          And just as quick, it was time to head for Destination 2 - A Preview of Kitely Merchant Hypergrid Fair (opens October 18 for 2 weeks only). The fair was opened just for our visit, even an hour before our scheduled arrival you couldn't get in, and so it felt very special to be there, a feeling that in no way diminished when we arrived and had a chance to rez. There were several of the builders and merchants present, and we were delighted to have Ozwell Wayfarer explain a bit about his brainchild.

Ozwell Wayfarer: Well, just that the market was growing quickly, and Kitely doesn't have so many community events, so it seemed a good idea to combine the two, but I think the main thing is that it has been a great community effort. There is over 40 merchants involved and everyone has been helpful and generally fantastic
Read more about ozwell's vision for the fair here
Jessica.Pixel: hello ozwell, awesome avatar
Zuza Ritt: Oz is the one with best groomed branches;)
Ghaelen.DLareh: Oz has done the lion's share, no doubt
 Isolde.Caron: it is very well made

Ozwell Wayfarer: I didn't want it to be "forcing shopping in your face", so I asked Zuza and a number of others to come and help me landscape everywhere. I am sure you can have a lot of fun just exploring but there is going to be a hunt when the fair officially opens on the 18th. With prizes hidden in treasure chests around the fair.
Spooky masterpiece by Zuza Ritt
    There's always a moment when people from not-for-profit grids visit commercial grids, a sort of coming together of two tectonic plates. Perms or no perms? Is lucre filthy? Is it OK to take freebies if you won't make freebies? Un-exportable items - good or bad?  Rather than judge, we seemed to come to a delicious understanding that variety is the spice of life.  Ozwell came across as a man with a good and generous heart who has managed to pull off  a triumph in the planning and execution of an extraordinarily liberal event where each maker follows their own instinct regarding how they purvey their creations.           

          Kitely fair is about landcaping, clothes, household items, just about anything you might need or want for your sim. Free items sit side by side commercial pieces. It's not only full time Kitely residents who have participated in the Fair, here is our own Fuschia Nightfire's Art shop.
             It truly is one of the most beautiful, imaginative and vast fairs you will see in any virtual world. Don't miss it.

HG Addresses
Satyr Gator's Opensimworld region    hg.osgrid,org:80:opensimworld
The Kitely Merchant's Fair (Opens 18 October for just two weeks)
grid.kitely.com:8002:Kitely Hypergrid Merchants Fair



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