Safarying

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

A Mobius Spring

Springtime is here on Mobius Grid with lots of good news and innovation! 
The unusual and colorful Mobius grid, inspired by all things Sonic the Hedgehog has recently re-opened its doors to OSGrid  gridjumpers, just in time for their Easter Hunt event, held on their big Welcome sim.  Grid address, is, of course, at the end of the post. 
The look of the Easter Hunt game is unmistakable and charming - this is Cream, an NPC who is part of the fun. Green Hill Zone is the sim most visitors know best, but don't neglect a visit to Lunaria, the gallery sim  belonging to Luna Lunaria, in all its violet glory.

Along with its signature look, Mobius Grid is all about innovation and making the best use of all the features the Viewer offers, so when you arrive you can participate in an Experience rather than just going around doing your own thing.
Top fox Royale Mobian, as seen in Jan 2022 on Green Hill Zone.
The core Mobius team consists of four members, Royale, the grid founder, Ruby, the head Dev, Magma, the main Moderator, and Event Manager Moonlight
2023 Easter Hunt on Green Hill Zone region
Ruby and Royale shared some thoughts about the tech development and ethos of Mobius Grid. 
Thirza
Ember: 
How did you guys meet?
Royale: I was at the time having a disagreement with this friend about a script they were writing for me. He brought Ruby into our voice call to help defend his case to me which Ruby preceded to say how I wanted it done was the better course of action for the script in question.
Thirza Ember: Mobius Grid is themed around classic video games - what made you decide to take these games and adapt them into an opensim grid, what challenges has that involved, and what aspects have been modified from the game to a livable virtual world?  What do you consider the best bits of Mobius Grid?
Royale:  I started as a region owner on SL in the Sonic community. I was seeing places close repeatedly in some cases open less then a month and wanted somewhere the community can grow without worry. We choose video gaming as a whole to not limit ourselves more then we already were if we just stuck with sonic. The challenges were mostly related to content creation either finding willing creators and when we had willing creators it was issues with the previous script and physics engines we used when we started XEngine and BulletSim. Now that we use YEngine and ubODE creating our environments has been much easier. For the most part we focus on the aesthetics and some environmental interactivity following whatever the current constraints of opensim at the time. 
Thirza Ember:  What have been the biggest challenges to creating a stable grid in opensim? And what do you consider your 'best bits'? 
Royale: for me learning what I needed to know and finding people I can both trust and rely on. The best bits of Mobius Grid? That would be how quick and stable we are, as well as the creativity that comes out of our users sometimes.
Seasons come and go on Mobius, just like anywhere else, and there are sometimes sad changes, like the loss of Drake Spyker a much loved member of the grid who passed away not long ago. He is missed!
Drake Spyker
Thirza Ember: Innovation is at the heart of the opensim experience. Mobius grid is an innovative grid, what are some ways that the user experience differs between Mobius and other grids?
Ruby: Honestly, despite how others feel about them, I think my favourite innovation was bringing over Experience Tools. I moved to OpenSim a few years after they were added to SL, and I missed them a lot.
Safari building on Mobius by Wizardoz Chrome
Mobius has been hosting Safari visits for many years, and for a time there was even an information center, by Wizardoz Chrome, on the grid. 
Thirza Ember:  How important is Second Life and the ongoing development of the user experience on that grid important to what you do on Mobius?
Royale: Very. We reference Second Life as a base standard to build and expand upon.
Ruby: I'm always interested in SL's development. New features in the SL client are almost always added to the OS clients, so if I add support for them they're almost guaranteed to work for everyone.
Safari trip to Mobius

Thirza Ember: How can people learn more about Mobius, both as normal users of the grid, and from a dev's point of view? And if people want to join the grid, what are the criteria?
Royale: Join our Discord server and talk to us. We are more then happy to answer anyone's questions 
Ruby: sign up at our grid's website  and hang around inworld

HG Addresses:

Mobius Welcome and game area:   main.mobiusgrid.us:80:Green Hill Zone Hop:  hop://main.mobiusgrid.us:80/Green%20Hill%20Zone/861/810/22

Luna Lunaria's gallery sim:    main.mobiusgrid.us:80:Lunaria
Hop  hop://main.mobiusgrid.us:80/Lunaria/274/390/18

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