Metrodämmerung

 It started with Maria Korolov, during one of her OSCC presentations, when she was talking about grid statistics.

Anyone who knows me knows that I spend most of the OpenSim Community Conference gossiping and flirting with whoever will put up with me, especially during the more arty or bookish parts. But I sat still and attended during Maria's bit (and also that brilliant Graham Mills lecture, with the ship. That was awesome.) 

Graham Mills' Liverpool history project is on Kitely

Anyway, Maria was talking grid stats and there was a slide showing traffic on the hg and so on, and somehow Metropolis got mentioned, and a voice from the audience, in what I can only describe as a contemptuous font, said something along the lines of 'Oh you can't hg to Metropolis.' 

'Yes you can,' says I, 'but it takes a while.' 

*Metropolis* region, Metropolis. You can't say they're not consistent.

I don't think anyone believed me, and I began to wonder if, in these recent weeks of wandering, I might have confused one place with another. 

But no.

It is true that things have changed big time on Metro. For one thing, the URI of the grid is different now. It used to be hypergrid.org:8002, which was massively confusing especially for HGNoobs, who would comb gridlists looking for Metropolis.org:8002. 

Now the grid is reached at login.metro.land. Not even a number. How mad is that.

However, on the Firestorm Release 6.4.21.64531 that I got last month, the Grid Manager still insists on the old address, so if you have a metro avie that you haven't used for a while, this might be your problem. 

That resolved, I jumped inworld. I have very fond memories of Metropolis. When OSGrid went offline for six months in the summer of 2014, the Safari was given a home on Metro, courtesy of Timothy Rogers of Zetamex and the good offices of Nara Malone.

Outlands on Metropolis

Sim Outlands was our base for a good six months before we moved over to Francogrid, and those were some of the most fun Safari times we ever had. Clouds included.

 Coming back into Metro after more than three years offline, I expected some of MetroThirza's content to be gone. But it was all gone. Every folder empty, including the opensim library, so no shape even, just a sad little red cloud. Francogrid Thirza IM'd me, but the messages wouldn't go through, we both showed up offline to each other, until at last, after about ten minutes, I managed to get a LM from Metro to Francogrid, and in return, was sent a shape, which I immediately put on.

FrancoThirza followed up with some baked pants and a mesh shirt that says 'Singularity Viewer Loading' (I had forgotten that Singularity Viewer existed!) and some Taarna Welles boots.

To complete the look, lizard eyes and some rather weird hair but better than nothing, and a bald base, since Metro Thirza cannot even make a body part. FrancoThirza, in her warm hoodie, seemed unimpressed, and left. What a ... oh nevermind.

All this took place in the famous iron tower, on the main landing sim *Metropolis* - often confusingly called Startregion -  which you will remember for being so redolent of Avia Bonne Steampunk bliss. I thought back to the whispered half truths I had heard about Metro, that there had been Drama, and a big crash of the asset server, and some kind of failed attempt to put the grid on a commercial footing. 

Many of those I had asked on Facebook and around the HG gave tightlipped Teutonic replies to my questions. The grid, even on a holiday week like this, seems completely deserted apart from good old Bertha the Hostess, who stands behind her Information Desk surrounded by a phenomenal amount of reading material. 

Sorry, then,  if you came to this blogpost looking for answers, no luck, only a nostalgic poster on the wall. Perhaps they have moved on to pastures new. I wasn't able to find out.

First rule of wilderness hypergridding is and always has been, don't waste your time zooming out on your map hoping to see the 'where you are', virtual maps don't work that way. If you don't know the names of any online regions on the grid, type 'Sand' into your map. and hit 'Find' because pretty much every grid has a region called sandbox something or other.

And voila.

At some considerable distance from Startregion, there was a whole continent on the map. When I got there, three contiguous sims popped into view. Not a party, but at least signs of life. I turned up my draw distance, and WHOA ! on the neighboring region, some meshy marble monuments shimmering on the horizon, property of Pixel Prim. 

Walking over to the city, I wondered if it was some kind of new beginning for the grid, because the mesh is beautiful. A promising looking teleport board featured ten destinations including such firm favorites as Condensationland and Pompeii.

But no go. None of the other sandboxes were reachable either, or at least the tp timed out before connection could be made with the region. It was all very 2009 hypergridding headache, except back then, Metro had a thriving population. 

What has happened? I know that most of my German friends are comfortably settled on a constellation of smaller grids. Many of these were never Metro residents, and have their homes in such lovely grids as Dorenas world, Soloton, Art Destiny,  Kubwa, Soul, KiWo,  NextLife, ThePublicGrid, Anettes Welt, Dereos, Phaandoria, GermanWorld, IceladyGrid, Offworld, just to name a few. But there was something so solid and broadly comforting about Metropolis, that to see it in this twilight state is like the loss of the location of happy childhood memories.

Back in the sandbox, the ghost of Santas past swooped across the crepuscular sky. So much love and effort and community went into building this place.

 Is this the melancholy Metrodämmerung, the twilight of the grid?  I hope not. I never thought I would make it back to opensim, yet here I am. I hope Metro does not go gently into that good night.