Chester and the portals

 Chester and me have been pretty busy jumping around the hypergloop looking for destinations for the latest HG Safari project, the Self Guided tours, and we are pretty close to being done. We have nc blindness now, hopefully some wine will fix that. 

Lessons from a Hypergrid Honeypot

The following is a Guest Article by Nara Malone of Nara's Nook. 

You can visit her grid at world.narasnook.com:8900 

Follow Nara's writing blog at naramalone.com 

The Nara's Nook Grid blog is at narasnook.com

The backstory: Nara and two writer friends, Siobhan Muir and  Tina Glasneck, founded their own grid 'Nara's Nook' in OpenSim about ten years ago. After several years of experiments in digital storytelling on the hypergrid, the resident authors branched off into other projects, leaving the grid online, but unattended. That was not good - their distraction was exploited by bad actors, who damaged the Nook. Here's Nara's take on this experience.

Nara’s Nook grid was an intentional hypergrid honeypot, not originally with intent to lure troublemakers so we could learn to secure things better. We left the grid portal unguarded to empower potential users to slip in, watch shyly from the shadows if they needed to, and eventually to experiment with the various elements of 3D storytelling on their own or by joining our projects. There was always a pot of stone soup simmering on the back burner, a fresh baked something or other to go with it, and plenty of wild honey or wild spirits to spike brewing creativity. Our doors and windows were left wide open. We left the porch light on, and NPC powers enabled for curious wandering souls.

Outdoors Indoors and more...

 Season One of the rebooted Safari has come to an end, and perhaps you're wondering - is that it?

Well, no. A brief burst of taking it easy, then it all begins again.

Season 2 will begin on Wednesday May 4. The theme of the first trip will be "The Great Outdoors - Indoors".  First stop: the French Canadian grid Creanovale, in its Spring/Summer mode. The Safari has been to this grid, owned by Dabici Straulino and Kelso Uxlay a few times over the years, but we have never seen their Canadian Summer look, so that will be a first. 

Our second stop will be on the German grid of Achim and Dina Twisterling, Next-Life Grid. Next-Life is gorgeous mix of regions, and a party destination throughout the year, and we will be hosted on their impressive sailing regions. 

That's just the first of 10 weeks of Safari that will include events celebrating 'The Little Prince', The Beatles, Dinkies, Gor, Space exploration, Opensim's top dev Ubit Umarov, the city of Belfast, OpenSimFest, and the music of Moses Rae - to name just some of our planned stops.

In the meantime, do drop in on HG Safari region on OSGrid over coming weeks, there will be some new items there.

Closing at Crista's

             For the second part of our final Safari of the season, we decided to "fechar com a flor" and so the Safari group came to UCI Mondego to meet up with a true Diva, Opensim's own Diva Canto, aka Crista Lopes. These occasions always produce a lot of questions and interesting answers, and on this occasion, Crista was quick to get in the first question, where were we all from?

Safari goes Silent

 The final Safari of this first season of 2022, and we ended on a high note indeed! Two completely different, yet equally interesting destinations this week, as we visited the vast space installation by Ferd Frederix and Joe Builder, and then called in to see HG goddess Diva Canto, aka Crista Lopes. This is Part One, and deals with our visit to Outworldz. For information about our trip to Crista's grid, see the post 'Closing at Crista's'

Our host Ferd joined us at the Clubhouse in robot form yesterday, and brought a nice gift - it's a little

Francogrid : The Musical

 FrancoGrid, one of the oldest grids in Opensim, is down. That is sad news, indeed, for anyone who over the past 15+ years has enjoyed this grid as a visitor or resident.

FrancoGrid has always been known for the beauty of the builds - whether hyper realistic or abstract, it has celebrated literature, music, art and culture for the best part of twenty years, through events famous across the Metaverse, like Fest'Avi, to less flamboyant but equally intricate celebrations of art on dozens of lovely sims. So what is next? Is this the end? Or the end of the beginning...

Going Wyld

 Laissez les bons temps rouler 

Time had gotten away from us, and we were quite soon heading out to our next destination, on Wyldwood Bayou grid, where they had held over Mardi Gras just for our delight and entertainment.

The bright colors and lively music on Wyldwood Bayou are matched perfectly by the warm welcome on the Grid. The residents and regular visitors call themselves a Tribe, and immediately here, you know it's a family of like minded creative, musical people who are quick to make any stranger a friend.  Our guide was Harmony Beningborough, who explained a little about the grid, with help from the others.

Harmony Beningborough: I am Harmony and I am club manager here on Wyldwood! I'd like to introduce Wyldwood's owner, Kith (our awesome DJ for today and our RP leaders Fiteach (Fit) and Contessa (aka Tessa and Amara). The 4 of us and Maggie and Durham Redmond are Wyldwood Bayou's Admin team! There are freebies up here to your right by the stage!!

Nara Nook: I so need some Cajun spirit today :)

Kith Whitehawk: We got it for ya  Nara!!!

Nara Nook: I'm soaking it up

Xaria Aubrey: sorry if my tail feathers smack anyone around ;)

Lifted Pixel: yeah i clicked the freebies and they're finally showed up! Slapping all this stuff on, gunna be surprised when it loads lol

Wizardoz Chrome: I had an incredible desire to dance :)  Finally!

Lifted and Wizardoz

There was some lag, I can't lie, and we got this great effect of Lucy dancing by herself, and we were just all having a lovely time, camming around the region, and glad to be in such happy company, it was pure joy.

The New Orleans townscape is astonishing, with breathtaking attention to detail. Cam or go inside all the shops and houses, visit the Asylum, the river boat, pose on the balconies and do it all with the most amazingly appropriate soundtrack - good music played well!

 Harmony Beningborough: Wyldwood Bayou was created by Kira Wyldfire (Whitehawk) in Inworldz in 2011. It is a region based on New Orleans, Louisiana, and although Kira was never able to visit NOLA, she fell in love with the "Big Easy" and wanted to spend her virtual life there, sharing the blues music that she loved so much. When IW closed, she brought Wyldwood Bayou and her venues.... along with staff and many "Blues Tribe" members to open sim! Kira passed away a short time later and her partner, Kith, along with staff and friends, kept the venues going and in 2020, we moved to our own grid which we affectionately call "Our own dayum swamp"!

Harmony Beningborough

Kith Whitehawk: yessaahhh!!

Harmony Beningborough: Wyldwood Bayou grid is now home to the venues Rockin' the Blues, Hot Daddy's Dance Dock, The Bayou Belle and Lady Blue with some special event venues and two awesome Medi/Fantasy roleplay groups, Brigantia and Ravenquest!

Nebby Newman: awesome!!

Harmony Beningborough: We celebrate Mardi Gras every year as does NOLA and we think we do it better! We certainly have just as much fun! At the end of Bourbon Street, in front of a copy of the Bayou Belle Riverboat, who is berthed here for Mardi Gras, you will find Info boards with history, statistics, website links, landmarks and even recipes!  There are 36 regions on Wyldwood Bayou Grid that are mainly 4 x 4s, and all of our buildings in N'Awlins are based on prominent buildings and areas in New Orleans. We hope you will take our self-guided walking tour at your leisure and maybe you too will fall in love with this colorful city!

Kith Whitehawk: Every part of of the region has something special in it ...lots of bits of detail...   the Asylum is interesting and has RL pics

Fitheach Eun: We also have a new region called "Wyld Thangs Ride Park: where you can participate in many types of individual and group sports, attend musical events and go to the movies!! It's a great place to relax and play!

Rockin' The Blues

We made our way over to the beautiful music venue called Wyldwood Bayou Rockin' The Blues.

Nara Nook: loving the music

Thirza Ember: so what was it like for you guys, when you left Inworldz? Was it a shock or did you know it was coming to an end?

Kith Whitehawk: lol   well....  we had done a trial run in a grid that went down shortly after it went up  so we had a small inkling. We were not really prepared for IW to go down of course...

Nebby Newman: hey, a whole 4 days notice! it's good the Kira wasn't on vacation <sigh>

Kith Whitehawk: lots of rushing around to get the important stuff. Kira had made all the important builds, so... we were fortunate in that ....

Thirza Ember: you guys managed to stay together, that's not easy when a grid disappears

Kith Whitehawk: Anyway  :)   was a great surprise  but  we were fortunate and had a lot of Tribe around us and a lot of support. Tribe is an amazing group of people. We still get folks that come in that we haven't seen in years.... is like old home week - don't care if you come in once a year or are a regular... once you Tribe, you always Tribe :)))

The focus of Wyldwood Bayou is on being a destination for dancing and roleplay, leaving drama and real world problems outside, making it an oasis for anyone looking for a relief from the stress of day to day life. There are five weekly music events, two roleplay sessions, and of course, you can visit any time to enjoy the scenery and explore the cultural history of New Orleans. 

Sometimes you come across grids that, maybe out of concern for losing content, or members, or some other paranoia, are not big fans of hypergridding and the challenges and opportunities it offers. With their background on Inworldz, a closed grid, how quickly did they take to the crazy pastime of gridjumping?

Fitheach Eun: Well personally I found OS to be a wide and wonderful place and I love the hypergrid

Maggie Redmond: Agrees completely with Fit! There are so many people here willing to help with just about anything, quite unlike SL

Contessa Lacombe: I love the HG.  It took me just a little while to learn to navigate, but I'd never go back!  And I love that we are a Destination here at WWB!!!  We are your prime HG vacation spot!!!

Amara Uloran: Please everyone....on each side of the stage is a big box It's loaded with landmarks for N'Awlins, as well as our music venues, Wyld Thangs, and the WWB Roleplay HUB!!! We hope you will all come back for many visits!

HG Addresses: 

Downtown New Orleans  

wyldwoodbayou.com:8002:Wyldwood Bayou N'Awlins

 Music Venue 'Rockin' the Blues'

wyldwoodbayou.com:8002:Wyldwood Bayou Rockin' The Blues