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.

Dreamgrid is the "free, open source, pre-packaged Windows-compatible virtual reality Opensimulator system that is easy to install, easy to run, and powerful" brainchild of Ferd Frederix. Here's the poster from his talk at this year's Opensim Community Conference, more about that below.

 It simplifies and streamlines the job of getting your own grid online, and it continued to blossom this year. With more than 7,000 downloads altogether, it's easy to see how much people love the way it allows friends and individuals to create a pretty much painless made-to-measure grid. 

In 2022 Fred added even more free .oars for the exclusive use of Dreamgrid adopters - like a whole set of LoTR themed sims - with many more in the pipeline. This means you get quality content immediately for your new world, and can mod and fine tune it to your heart's content, rather than beginning with the rather scary empty ocean/green field site. Thank you Ferd and Debbie and Joe and all the people behind this wonderful content!

Hobbiton,  A Dreamgrid exclusive region

Many well-known grids have also grown along with their community - it's fair to say that AMV has been leading the pack in overall terms, with a kaleidoscope of community activities, educational as well as entertaining, plus lots of new regions being added, all done with Cat and Cliff's signature sweetness and imagination, and lots of help from their extensive team. These were just three of this year's myriad AMV events.

OSGrid got a boost at the start of the year when the asset migration was carried out and residents had the pleasant surprise of rediscovering all their old stuff again - always fun!  Opensim's favorite idiot ramped up a griefing campaign aimed at getting us all to turn off rezzing on our sims, and to come to terms with the occasional burst of self spawning spheres. Almost equally annoying to some, as part of the rebooted HG Safari, we celebrated Cornflakes Week with a fabulous new build by Cherry Manga...

Cornflakes Party, February 2022

... who had a particularly rich year with builds on several grids including the audiovisual masterpiece Jukebox, located first on CopyKat grid and now on OSGrid.

Juke Box by Cherry Manga

As things were looking up for OSGrid, things were coming to a close on FrancoGrid - at least for the foreseeable future. After a long decline, problems with the company hosting the FrancoGrid servers meant lights out. 

The lights went out on Francogrid at the beginning of 2022

A second blow to the French speaking community and their friends was the sudden and unexpected closure of Virtual Dreams grid...  

Vladimir Djannovic

...which also meant the end of the weekly Virtual Discovery' tours  organized by Vladimir Djannovic to francophone sims. 

Virtual Discovery tour to Serenity Zoo

Luckily by September of this year, a monthly Francophone event was re-started, look for the group here on Discord if you'd like to hear more details about upcoming trips.

In April, it was announced that 3rdLife grid would shortly shut down after seven years of activity.

Inside Startregion, Metropolis, during the Goodbye Metro party

In June, we heard that Metropolis Grid would be shutting down at the end of the month. Metro was founded in April 2008, making it easily one of the oldest grids ever in opensim - a few months older than Kitely (September 2008 - here's a vid of their big  bash this year, courtesy of Mike McHugh),

...  and only a year and a bit younger than OSGrid itself January 2007). 

Metropolis had a great sendoff with a big party to mark the passing. Love the grid or hate it, nevertheless it deserved our respect. 

The solution - a great big party !  LadyJo Martin agreed to DJane for us, and Neovo  Geesink, who for years was a sort of volunteer admin on Metro still had some powers to change the stream - he also created a Metro region on OSGrid where some elements of the grid are preserved and when Metrophiles can gather and party if they wish.

Sadly not every loss could be partied away. In RL we lost a number of dear friends in opensim, here are just three. Torben Asp passed away after a long and courageous battle against ill health.

He was best known for his unfailing kindness, his trance music, and his particle shows in SL and  Opensim.

Torben Asp Particles

We also lost Rudi Backerly  of Soul Grid, 

and Veritas McMaster who died in a tragic house fire.

Sad moments aside, there was plenty of cultural and festive fun across opensim - too many events to name them all here. 

Rosanna Galvani and Velazquez Bonetto at the Ebook opening

Rosanna Galvani and her group at the Museo del Metaverso on Craft Grid had loads of international events, including the inauguration of the Ebook library, plus many events in recognition of Women's rights and against domestic violence. 

Harmony Beningborough

Who can forget the colorful, and fun-packed Carnival, New Orleans style, over on Wildwood Bayou grid, and in June there was the Art Crawl on Digiworldz.

Images by Llola Lane and Nebby Newman for Art Walk on Whale Island, Digiworldz

Loru Destiny organized a Fashion Show for creators from half a dozen different grids, to showcase the original opensim content that is available in the world of apparel.

Great avies, great outfits, and great afterparty with Loru Destiny & friends

 Then there was the year-long Pangea Festival of Art and Culture, featuring all kinds of significant artists and performers in an unwavering series of perfection, not to mention audience participation. 

Terra Mehryem kicked off the year long art festival on Pangea

In July there was OpensimFest, with Shelenn Ayres at the helm, which was a wonderfully successful three week extravaganza on a purpose-built grid, much of it filmed by Mike McHugh (sub him on YouTube, you won't regret it!).

The music venue on OpenSimFest

OSgrid 15th birthday followed, perhaps the most significant since the oldest of all the grids. 

Dan Banner at the OSGrid birthday party

Not long after,  the OSGrid Auction was an opportunity for people to make original items to be auctioned in favor of supporting the 'crossroads of the hypergrid' - they comfortably exceeded the contribution goal, proving once again the great generosity and imagination that OSGrid residents continue to demonstrate. All that, and a pirate themed sim. Bliss.

OSGrid Auction o Event Plaza this summer

In December the Opensim Community Conference was held on its purpose built grid - this was the 10th anniversary for the conference that brings together people working and playing in all different parts of Opensim, with opportunities for opensimmers  to learn, network, share, and publicize - yeah and have a good gossip too. Why not.

The Keynote area on OSCC

Add to all this the many Hunt builds all across the HG, bringing a bit of fun and a mental workout to anyone seeking a higher game, and the sublimely realistic changing seasons on Creanovale Grid. 

Spring on CreaNovale

It's been a year to remember.