Other grids, the next frontier
In the last days i’ve been exploring, exploring other metaverses (OMG! I feel like Cpt. Picard!). 
Even we all know Linden Lab’s customer policy sucks lately i think their software is quite good (although the bad performance, issues and bugs we can find sometimes), that’s why i wanted to explore other metaverses using “similar” technology. This technology is OpenSimulator, a 3D Application Server that works similar to the Second Life server application but is licensed under a BSD License. With that application you can even run a sim in your own computer. This application is considered and Alpha release so… you know, is a bit crashy and buggy.
There are a lot of grids, even some standalone sims, using that technology, you can see a list of them, but i decided to explore two of them for different reasons.
First, Openlife Grid. I’m Raul Crimsons there (i created an account before with my SL name but lost the password, so created a new one). My dear friend Eric Quimby has a Full Region there and really wanted to explore it, he offered me the possibility of building and playing in his sim and wanted to visit it. Openlife is the Opensimulator grid with more residents in this moment, around 36800, is also running right now for some months. The “general flavor” of Openlife is a bit… how to say it?… savage. I presume is like being one of the pioneers in Far West. That can be exciting but at the same time adds some “uglyness” and sensation of chaos. I presume is a bit like SL in its first times.
- Good things of Openlife: Land is cheaper than SL Grid (even you have to buy full regions for the moment), the prim allowance for sims are 40000 prims (YAY!), is a full place by users for users, uploads of images are free, they still don’t have an economy system (no money) what is good someway, specially for the ones who doesn’t like much the economy side of SL. You can choose your first and second name freely (YAY!). You can have more than one avatar in your account.
- Bad things of Openlife: No nice default avatars (well, SL ones are really cute next to Ruth and “Rutho” of Openlife), performance may be quite unstable and crashy in some moments (remember server software is alpha), even inventory is stable appearance seems to be lost at log off, so you need to wear again shape, hair, skin and clothes everytime you’re back. Friends list don’t seem to work correctly, is deleted in every log on, maybe is a temporary issue.
Was fun to be there, and create some stuff, like a decent shape, skin, some clothing, some objects and scripts… but there exist some like a loneliness, a peace what is good and bad at the same time. Didn’t see shops or even freebie areas (possibly there are some but didn’t find them).
Being there i built this big “HELLO” sign to make notice Eric my visit, hehehe, thanks god he gave me permission to build in his land. Now is even bigger and laying in the ground, so i think it will be seen soon in the map.
Also made run some simple scripts and they seem to work just fine, no much delay. The sim performance is generally better than SL Grid, having higher frame rates, not only in client side, also in server side. Although this performance is a bit unstable. Object creation and deleting is quite fast too generally, but land edition is slow (maybe was also a temporary issue).
Second, Legend City Online. Raul Crimson, like in SL there. Ana Lutetia told about that place and wanted to explore it. Having visited before Openlife i was really surprised with Legend City, even is quite “younger” seems more developed, but i think is becuase the people creating Legend City is more on the “business model” Linden Lab had some time ago (not the one now, where M is making me miss P). The people behing Legend City is contacting with SL creators and offering them the possibility of being in Legend City, so just in the Welcome Center you can find GREAT freebies from creators like Simone Stern, and mentors helping people arriving. Building in welcoming areas are quite nice and the staff is really nice and helpful. The general feeling on Legend City is more “ordenated” than Openlife, is more like SL in its middle times. They have an economy system and virtual money, you can buy it in their home page or transfer it from SL Grid in a sim called Legend City, that’s quite interesting i think, the intergrid money transfers.
- Good things of Legend City: Even you have to choose a second name from a list when creating your account you can change your name to the one you are using in SL easily with some ATM located in the SL Grid, in Legend City sim. The default avatars are really good, even i miss maybe some furry one. Staff is helpful and you can find them around easily (at least the times i was on). Land is cheap, a “Openspace” sim with 3750 prims is 25US$ per month, full sims with 20000 prims are 100 US$/month. Legend City staff works on server side updates. Appearance remains after relogs.
- Bad things of Legend City: Again stability, even is a bit better than Openlife they are using an Alpha software, so even performance uses to be quite acceptable is a bit unstable and simulators crash often. Friends list have to be fixed, is deleted in every relog. “Hair-on-bum” syndrome, not always, but it happens. Some problems with physics and collision maps (underground feet, weird legs,…).
Was nice to meet some great people in the Welcome Center (this image above). Really is a place to visit that Welcome Center, not only becuase you can meet people there, also for the freebies and is where is easier to find mentors and Legends (the staff). By the way, i bought an Openspace sim there, just to try. Is a sim called Solaris, fell free to visit (even is quite empty right now).
So this is part of my two explorations. Of course there is much more and you should explore yourself to have your own vision about it. You can use the SL viewer, the one Linden Lab releases, but you should do some changes in configuration. To avoid that i was using a viewer “resident created”, is one where you can choose what grid you want to connect in the opening screen.
This viewer is named Hippo Opensim Viewer, you can find more information about it and download it here.
After the last Linden Lab PR mistakes, like the hike on the price of Openspaces sims, like M Linden declarations about how important Premium accounts are for them (no important at all), a lot of people is trying to find new places to develope and enjoy their second life. This other grids will grow fast from now possibly, they offer better prices, friendly staff in some cases. Even the performance is a bit unstable still and physics have to be improved they will be better soon. I’m not moving for the moment, but who knows what will happen in the future? As every resident, i will decide depending the Linden Lab’s policy and relationship with their customers… all of us.
UPDATE (Dec, 28th 2008): In the last weeks some comments appeared about Legend City Online manegement and business practices, you can see about them also in the comments of this post. Please, find more information in this post by Prad Prathivi or this other or in others around the SLblogosphere.
26 Responses to “Other grids, the next frontier”
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- - November 25, 2008
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It should be mentioned that for all these grids you can use your regular Second Life viewer, with simply some different startup parameters. A list of all grids (inlcuding OSGrid which I would add with OpenLife and LCO as the top-three to look at) and their login parameters can be found here: http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Grid_List
Thanks for your comment, Peter, but that was already said in the post.
Peter, two of the links on the page you’ve provided go to a blank page (the “protocol handler” link and “shortcut” link). And the OpenSim Launcher download is for Windows – I use a Mac. So, I’m pretty confused on how to use the SL Viewer to connect to another Grid. LOL
Maybe easier to use the Hippo viewer that Raul suggests?
Thanks Raul for this great information
Aloha
Well, Sahoni, Peter is linking the same page as me in the OpenSimulator website, possibly is not as updated as it should, but well, i can understand it because is an Open Source project.
I use a Mac too and tried both options, the Linden Lab viewer and the Hippo one. Both works, just download the Hippo viewer becuase you can choose what grid you want to connect easily and there is no need of changing configuration.
I manage to login *once* in Legend City. I want to get back and get my SL name.
I agree that it is becoming increasingly a good idea to scope out other virtual platforms and see what is happening. Linden Labs need to realise that my loyalty (and many others) isn’t to their company and their incarnation of the platform, it is to the content creators and fellow residents I call friends. These people are the ones I create my “Second Life” with. If they continue to do things that annoy, aggravate and make life hard for them, they will go elsewhere and I shall most likely go with them.
For the moment people will probably sit tight with what is familiar, until the alternatives are more up to speed, but it should still be a cause of alarm to Linden Lab that more people than ever before are looking either for a new grid to go to, or at the very least, an easy workflow system that will allow them to smoothly transition everything they make to a new grid.
Thanks Raul for sharing this – it got me excited to go and explore in Legend City – its exciting and promising – So much so – we are now neighbors there. I look forward to building a new world. The quality of content that exists now is very good and the owners have a zero tolerance policy regarding content theft.
Please anyone come visit – my sim is called Eden – its part of the mainland at Legend City – its on the east side of the continent.
Hiya Raul,
It’s interesting to watch these developments but I certainly won’t be leaving Second Life any time soon. First of all the new pricing policies do not affect me and nor are they likely to in the future, I downgraded my premium account a long time ago because of my issues with Linden Lab. Maybe all the recent protests will finally give them the kick up the arse they need.
Secondly, the only reason I remain in SL is to create art, and whilst I could go elsewhere and create a sim-wide installation, what’s the point if nobody sees it? Although, it is getting increasingly difficult generating interest from a very apathetic SL community, moving to another virtual world would only limit the possibilities even further.
But, it’s definitely a good idea to keep an eye on the alternatives.
Thanks for sharing your points of view.
I’d like to remark this doesn’t mean i’m moving from Second Life either (for the moment) but as Arahan said, i want to have an eye over the alternative, with this post wanted to share with you my explorations.
Personally i’m not affected directly by the price hike on Openspaces in SLgrid. I can enjoy less places to visit and i worry for the friend who are affected directly, that’s all. Anyway i think was a bad policy of LL and at the same time makes me think in a probably increase in the prices of “normal” sims… and that will affect me.
Raul,
Thank you for your wonderful blog post. I love that you are such an explorer as Capt Picard.
I believe in choice. More choices improves my opportunities. I believe people will find the place that makes them feel good.
If LL is making people feel bad about their second life. It should be advertised everywhere possible that there are alternatives.
I have had a good experience at both these grids.
Thanks for this information.
Hiero
Oops… seems my quick reading backfired on me
Thanks, friends, as always, for sharing your points of view.
I’d like to copy here a comment i made on a blogpost of Prad Prathivi regarding this question, specially related to the possibilities of people to change “grid provider”:
Its prudent to branch out.. especially since we have no clue of LL real business plan and what surprised the future might bring.
There is also way more freedom for builders with prim size and edit features not supported by SL..
what is alpha or beta today is the hotness of the future.
The more creators and scripters who branch out, the faster these worlds will progress… a
Just a few points to clear up about OpenLife though…
45000 prims per sim not 40000… for 75US a month for a private Island and way less for mainland.
In the short time that I have been there, so much progress has been made and even more planned for.
Avatar appearance will ‘stick’ after you log in a few times… so dont give up yet Raul. ^^
Looks quite interesting that just these weeks folks behind Koinup openened an Open Sim Channel
and that Intel is working on the OpenSim source for its own world
thanks for your great reportage!
Thanks, Eku, you are right, and that’s interesting, because the base are content creators. Let’s see how it ends all together.
Lucrezia, you are right, and that’s really cool from the people of Koinup (who are really nice ones), for the ones interested, take a look at this link.
I started checking out OpenLife in February, but only discovered Legend City a few days ago through the article in NPIRL.
What I like best about both of them is the sense of excitement you find with everybody. I’ve yet to meet a single person who wasn’t enthusiastic about building a real community.
I’ve almost convinced myself to go ahead and get an Open Space Sim in Legend City, but I wanted to ask people who’ve already done it how their experience has been so far.
Do your research on the LCO grid!!
I know they did not pay several of its programmers, who have now left. Several land barons left LCO after fights with management, due to tier fee double and TOS changes.
You can loose your money for any reason, get banned for any reason.
LCO is new, but they bought out another top grid, but they never paid the full price to buy the old grid. They also tried to dispute paypal payments to them. Call it a Slick trick? or fraudulent management?
The user counts are not correct. Most users are from the old grid and most of them users quit.
Check out a grid where the residents do operate the grid.
http://www.AvatarHangout.com
I understand Raul, but if you hire a programmer and after he is done you dont pay the balance of agreed price, and then go to paypal and dispute the downpayment, lol this is not fixing some bugs. I call it flat out fraud.
LCO agreed to buy Central Grid for XXX money, then never paid it on agreed date and took over all customers and access was changed to lock out the old owners, then paypal dispute on the downpayment.
LCO has smart management team, they know what they did.
Just wait till it happens to you then report about that also.
Sincerly, James, hope the programmers get paid soon. What you are talking about is fraud for sure.
Some think they can win at any cost.
Due the latest informations about LCO business practices i published an update at the end of the post.
Thanks.
You write, “[OpenLife is] a full place by users for users”
I think you’ll actually find that there’s a company behind it.
In any event, I think what’s important is that alternatives are arising. Linden Labs runs a monopoly, and that is starting to show in how arrogant their customer service reps are becoming in response to quite ordinary and reasonable customer service requests. They’ve got an effective monopoly, and they know it, and it shows. It’s like the monopoly days of AT&T when the customer service people resented customers calling in. Now that their customers can call someone else and leave them in peace, AT&T is a little happier to pick up the phone :} Linden Labs is becoming the same way. The way their customer service reps (cause that’s all the Lindens are; just customer service reps) talk down to customers is mind-blowing; you would not get away with that in any other business I can think of.
Thanks for your comment and the aditional information, Chaz. I totally agree with you Linden Lab works mainly in a monopolistic way and they should in a more opened way, but Linden Lab policies seem to be quite erratic way, so after the time this post was writen some things changed a lot… let’s see what happens finally.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, James. In this post i just tried to tell my experiences visiting other grids and i’m grateful others can tell their experiences too, as you are doing here.
For my experience LCO, as other grids, need to fix some things, like billing, and i prefer to think that billing mistakes are only that, mistakes due the lack of experiences. LCO has a lot to fix about it, and i hope they fix it all soon, for the health of their business.