Craft's Sixteenth

 The Jubilee building on Craft is up and running and celebrating sixteen years of Opensim. It's an impressive achievement not only in technology but also in terms of community. 

The big party is on Tuesday, 27 January and the fun begins at 12 noon SLT, that's 9pm in most of Europe, on sim Jubilee, HG Address at the end of the post as always.

Craft owner Licu Rau is proud of his Sardinian stubbornness and credits that for some of the grid's success, but he's the first to say that it wouldn't be anything more than a private plaything without the residents.

That's why each year on sim Jubilee there is more than just a birthday party, there's also a fabulous display in the Expo Center, featuring work by people who have been here from the early days, and those who have called the grid home only for a couple of years. 

Safari Goes into Fantasia

Safine Mahoe's brand new sim Fantasia on Friends Grid is a magnificent new landscape and Safine very kingly offered the HG Safari group the first look. It's 16 regions of woodland, swamp, waterways and meadows, peppered with houses and creatures all of a fantastic kind, whether it's from folklore, literature, or her own imagination. All was perfectly planned for our trip as the second destination  of the week, when about 20 minutes before we were supposed to go there, it turned out that the region watn' letting people in. Very frustrating for Safine, since all had been fine just about an hour earlier when we had checked the LMs were working. 

Safine outdid herself by getting us to the region despite the glitch

There was no time to stand around asking ourselves why this had happened so Safine very rapidly got busy trying to stop the region telling people they were 'banned' - that was not at all what was happening! But as we all know, the standard messages of Opensim when something isn't working can be much ruder and less informative than desired! With swiftness and care, Safine quickly worked to make it possible for as many of us who were willing to power through the situation to get to her gorgeous new realm, and most of us did, including the newest Safarian, Neko Littlepaws who moments before had been accompanying us around the wonderful Exodus sim on Groovyverse - you can read about that tour here.

Our fairy guide, Safine Mahoe

Safine Mahoe: first off, thank you for coming......I am truly honored! I apologize for the access issue, it was fine two hours ago

Thirza Ember: yes that's opensim for ya

Tina Bey: lol

James Atlloud: yeah - we are used to it

Dorena Bree: a mystery wrapped inside a mystery

Forest Azure: those are the best

Dorena.Bree: I think so too

Clowning Around

 When it comes to detail-rich builds with an authentic feel of the real place and a quick rez, they aren't clowning around on Groovyverse which was our first stop for this week's Safari. The destination was sim Exodus, and about seven or eight of us joined the locals in a parking lot in central Nevada, which is a really good copy of a real life place in the town of Tonopah in Nevada, USA. It's called the Clown Motel - check out that link and you'll see how close this pixel version is - with a twist of its own!

The inworld version is part of a multi region build representing the desert lands east of California, and if those gloriously alien looking mountains in the distance remind you of a previous Safari it's because we came to this general area three years ago to learn about Burning Man, the virtual and the real celebrations. 

Doctor Dave at the Clown Motel

Much has happened since that memorable visit (people still talk about the amazing train ride!) and we were ready to be guided by Doctor Dave around the whole darn place and to learn a lot about a lot of stuff, including art, rl crossover, travel, ghosts, and of course, clowns. You can't be burning if you're not learning. 

Free Radek-als

 Vbinnia Radek is an Opensim legend. Her region Steam on OSGrid is one of those places that in the early days was a haven of fantastic assets when assets were like rare earths.

Arriving on the region can present a few small hiccups, you may end up at 128,128 which is the default landing on a regular sized sim, right in the middle. Steam was regular size but it's been improved into a VAR however opensim doesn't always remember that and will deposit you at the traditional landing spot which happens to be underwater. DOn't panic take a deep breath and cam up and out and you'll soon see the vast port and the industrial steampunk landscape behind it.

We met at an incongruously countrified spot on such a townie region, a little camp fire in a wood.

Vbinnia Radek: Hello every one :)

Forest Azure: hello vbinnia

Dorena Bree: Hi

Thirza Ember:  you have inspired so many of us, Vbinnia. This region - from forever - has been one of the best places in Opensim... i'm a fangirl LOL

Vbinnia Radek: chuckles! glad someone is... right now I need to inspire myself

Hel of a Trip

 This week we kicked off with a visit to a set of sims steeped in nordic tradition. Due to some very last minute changes in the itinerary we went to a whole different set of interesting spots, some of which rezzed for us, and some not so much. For many, just getting to the sim was a struggle but we battled through valiantly, using the Welcome region on Ignis as a stepping stone, plus improvised LMs, IMs, teleports, swearing, and sheer determination.

The gorgeous Dragon Towers, maybe we will get to visit another time.

There was a big and very last minute change to the itinerary; instead of visiting the land of the Dragon Towers as planned we went to see the Viking equivalent of hell... thankfully the people planning on joining the tour had gathered at the clubhouse so it was easy to contact everyone who got lost or stuck and get them back with our tour guides, Nadir rae and Max Well, who also built this wonderful place

Max Well: First PART — The Gates of Hel,  Gnipahellir and Garm: Journey Through the Nine Worlds of Yggdrasil. The light flickers gently. The ground beneath your feet seems alive, pulsing with slow rhythms, like an ancient heart. Around you rises a colossal trunk, so vast that its summit is lost in the heavens. You are at the foot of Yggdrasil, the World Tree.

Daydream Believers

Our second stop for week one of the new season of Safari was on Kitely.

'Synthetic Dreams' is the art event organized by Koshari Mahana, Kimm Starr and Cooper Swizzle. This is one of two Opensim 'pavilions' participating in The Wrong Biennale  the other was curated by Art Blue and featured heavily at the 2025 OSCC. For the HG Safari OSCC tour last December, we took a trip around Synthetic Dreams, which is on Kitely Expo Center, and there's a blog post about this place when it first opened, so for some of us this was a return visit, but because of the overwhelming nature of the sim - a whopping 15 artists with multiple, complex installations are here  - it was definitely the case to return and try to take in a bit more of what's going on.

Arriving at Synthetic Dreams

Kimm Starr: We want to thank Thirza for bringing the hypergrid Safari to Synthetic Dreams here in Kitely.  Synthetic Dreams is ½ of our Pavilion for the Wrong Biennale. The Wrong Biennale is a real world art show seen by millions of people world wide!  This years theme is AI in Art.  Please take a moment to landmark this Pavilion.   We will visit all of the represented exhibits to meet the artists and have a look at their work. Feel free to ask the Artists questions about their work.  Please come back and experience all of the exhibits at your leisure.  First up - Forest Azure, Enjoy the tour!

Forest Azure: this build symbolizes the struggle of man versus machine, which is my thing with AI and art. 

Light Entertainment

Getting back into the swing of things after the break for the holidays is always tough. I for example forgot to turn on 'Save Local Chat' at our first stop on this week, but the visit was unforgettable. 

A good sized crowd showed up to sample the joys of Luminaria a region on Littlefield grid that opens only for a few days a year. But before we got to the good bit... it was get the LMs time!

Safari Returns

 The HG Safari tours return this week on Wednesday 7 January at 12 noon Grid time (9pm in Central Europe) with the usual double bill of destinations. As always, a host or guide will be waiting for us at each stop because sure, you can visit these places by yourself at any time, but it's even more fascinating to be there with the person who built, or owns, or looks after the sim and who can give you some context to what you're looking at. And traveling with friends makes it a road trip.

Defying drowning on Friends Grid

It's a fine human paradox that on one hand we're all trying to get away and carve out our own little paradise of expression and freedom, but on the other hand we're gregarious animals and feel the need to explain, share, and party together. Sims come alive when they're full of real people not just animesh or NPCs. 

That's the fun of group trips and kind of cancels out the more frustrating bits of herd-hypergridding: lag, missing bits, having a time constraint, and did I mention lag.