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#alternatemetaverse — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #alternatemetaverse, aggregated by home.social.

  1. CW: Pondering the OpenSim grid statistics for May; CW: long (over 7,000 characters)
    What really gave me to think when looking at Hypergrid Business' OpenSim statistics for May was the varying discrepancy between active users, Hypergridders included, and land mass on the various grids.

    The biggest grids in land mass are both special cases. Being the second-largest grid with 29,248 standard regions, the Wolf Territories Grid is one because it's largely varsims, and at least the mainland is varsims from 4x4 upward. Whereas other grids are dominated by standard-region-sized sims, a typical Wolf Territories sim is 16 of these. Also, @Lone Wolf himself is probably still the owner of the most land in the metaverse. At the same time, the Wolf Territories Grid tops the list of most active grids with 6,232 MAUs.

    OSgrid, largest with 32,547 standard regions, easily leaving Second Life in the dust, and second-busiest with 5,186 MAUs, is a special case because it doesn't offer land rentals. Everything that isn't an official sim is attached to the grid and hosted by its users. Size-wise, that goes from single personal sims hosted at home to whole archipelagos of varsims like Tropicana Estates (which used to be a whole lot bigger even) or Nautilus Estates. Technically speaking, OSgrid is the one grid with the most region servers. Also, for this reason, OSgrid's land mass always takes a little dive whenever they do a clean-up and remove dead sims from their map because many don't shut their sims down properly when removing them. At the same time, of course, OSgrid is a popular destination for Hypergridders even beyond parking your avatar at Lbsa Plaza.

    Now let's take a look at some other grids.

    Kitely is the third-largest grid with 18,077 standard regions, but the 20th-busiest grid with only 627 MAU. But it's a popular builders' grid due to its stability. Kitely's trick to cope with that much land is to shut all sims down when they aren't populated and start them up again when someone wants to enter them, a trick that was later re-implemented by DreamGrid.

    ZetaWorlds is the fourth-largest grid with 12,910 standard regions, but only the 21st-busiest grid with only 596 MAU. I doubt that this includes the 3rd Wind community. Still, one reason ZetaWorlds is so large and underpopulated is its huge ocean, consisting of dozens upon dozens of varsims; I think it was 3x3s. It's so big that it takes well over five minutes to cross in a motor boat at full speed. Even Stark, a nudism-encouraging archipelago of 14 4x4 vars, that's still 224 standard regions in the hands of three owners, doesn't make up a large percentage of ZetaWorlds' land area. The lack of MAU can be explained by ZetaWorlds not letting avatars from lots of grids in for reliability reasons.

    Alternate Metaverse is actually balanced. It's the fifth-busiest grid with 2,025 MAU and the fifth-largest grid with 10,178 standard regions. This may not seem balanced, but AMV residents love to build big, too. Grid owners Cataplexia Numbers and Clifford Hanger seem to almost always build vars because they always need lots of room. Welcome and Annex are exceptions because they're practically entirely indoors. Chris McCracken builds vars so big that even he gets lost without a proper map. And AMV was where Jimmy Olsen inflated Norway-themed Alfheim from an already respectable 4x4 with lots of details to a 10x10 giant before it sadly vanished. At the same time, AMV has loads of events which also attract Hypergridders.

    GroovyVerse, sixth-largest at 7,837 standard regions and 23rd-busiest with only 514 MAUs, is a community effort in building a whole lot of land. It's actually building a sim-crossing railway network which by now may be larger than the one in the Wolf Territories, and that one already takes quite some time to travel.
    One reason for the lack of activity may be because only few sims are advertised on OpenSimWorld, and so only few people know about them in the first place. That's partly because of @Hyacinth 🏳️‍⚧️ ☮️'s very justified love-hate relationship towards OSW to say the least. In fact, she "loves" OSW so much that she is working on an alternative to replace it.

    Shoalwater Bay is another interesting case: The tenth-largest grid with 1,072 standard regions isn't even in the top 25 of busiest grids. The reason becomes apparent if you look at its grid map, and the grid name is a dead giveaway: It's a sailing grid with only 49 adjacent sims, six of which are 8x8 vars, the other 43 being 4x4 vars. Over half a dozen sims don't even seem to have any actual land on them.

    The GBG Metaverse, formerly GreekLife Breath Grid, is the opposite case. It's the third-busiest grid with 2,239 MAU, but only the tenth-largest grid with only 956 standard regions. This is astounding for two reasons. One, GBG is the result of two grid mergers. First, the Tranquility Grid was merged into the younger Little Breath Grid. And then Little Breath merged with GreekLife. Two, GreekLife used to make renting at least one sim mandatory for every resident. GBG has switched to a different model: Your inventory is limited to 5,000 items unless you rent land or donate. Still, I wonder where the discrepancy comes from, seeing as GBG doesn't have any super-popular events or freebie sims.

    Even more extreme: Darkheart's Playground and WaterSplash are number seven and eight in MAU, both between 1,600 and 1,700. But neither is even in the top 40 of largest grids. However, both are famous for one very popular freebie sim each, Darkheart's Boutiques and iPleasure respectively, the latter being the home of the R. Lion "brand". I think both grids have only got about half a dozen sims each or so. So either the stats are vastly dominated by Hypergridders, or people create alts on these grid to make grubbing freebies and passing them on to their mains easier and circumvent grid blocks. For example, AFAIK, ZetaWorlds has blocked both, and in the case of Darkheart's Playground, the block is mutual. I'd really like to see the faces of the users when they discover that most content offered on both grids is no-transfer.

    Last but not least, Neverworld makes me wonder, too. It reported 1,101 MAUs, ranking ninth, on only 343 standard regions, ranking 22th. And that's considering this grid is mostly vars, too. Most of it is joined together in one big mainland connected by a network of streets. A lot of it is owned by grid owner Govega Sachertorte and split into parcels for everyone to rent for free, even Hypergridders. Still, most of that land is vacant, maybe also because you can't set your home out in the Hypergrid, so it isn't quite useful as a dwelling-place unless you're a Neverworlder. What probably causes the most traffic, however, are Nexus Storm's several large freebie sims.

    #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Grid #WolfTerritories #WolfTerritoriesGrid #WolfGrid #OSgrid #Kitely #ZetaWorlds #AlternateMetaverse #AMV #GroovyVerse #ShoalwaterBay #GBG #DarkheartsPlayground #WaterSplash #Neverworld #OpenSimStatistics
  2. CW: Pondering the OpenSim grid statistics for May; CW: long (over 7,000 characters)
    What really gave me to think when looking at Hypergrid Business' OpenSim statistics for May was the varying discrepancy between active users, Hypergridders included, and land mass on the various grids.

    The biggest grids in land mass are both special cases. Being the second-largest grid with 29,248 standard regions, the Wolf Territories Grid is one because it's largely varsims, and at least the mainland is varsims from 4x4 upward. Whereas other grids are dominated by standard-region-sized sims, a typical Wolf Territories sim is 16 of these. Also, @Lone Wolf himself is probably still the owner of the most land in the metaverse. At the same time, the Wolf Territories Grid tops the list of most active grids with 6,232 MAUs.

    OSgrid, largest with 32,547 standard regions, easily leaving Second Life in the dust, and second-busiest with 5,186 MAUs, is a special case because it doesn't offer land rentals. Everything that isn't an official sim is attached to the grid and hosted by its users. Size-wise, that goes from single personal sims hosted at home to whole archipelagos of varsims like Tropicana Estates (which used to be a whole lot bigger even) or Nautilus Estates. Technically speaking, OSgrid is the one grid with the most region servers. Also, for this reason, OSgrid's land mass always takes a little dive whenever they do a clean-up and remove dead sims from their map because many don't shut their sims down properly when removing them. At the same time, of course, OSgrid is a popular destination for Hypergridders even beyond parking your avatar at Lbsa Plaza.

    Now let's take a look at some other grids.

    Kitely is the third-largest grid with 18,077 standard regions, but the 20th-busiest grid with only 627 MAU. But it's a popular builders' grid due to its stability. Kitely's trick to cope with that much land is to shut all sims down when they aren't populated and start them up again when someone wants to enter them, a trick that was later re-implemented by DreamGrid.

    ZetaWorlds is the fourth-largest grid with 12,910 standard regions, but only the 21st-busiest grid with only 596 MAU. I doubt that this includes the 3rd Wind community. Still, one reason ZetaWorlds is so large and underpopulated is its huge ocean, consisting of dozens upon dozens of varsims; I think it was 3x3s. It's so big that it takes well over five minutes to cross in a motor boat at full speed. Even Stark, a nudism-encouraging archipelago of 14 4x4 vars, that's still 224 standard regions in the hands of three owners, doesn't make up a large percentage of ZetaWorlds' land area. The lack of MAU can be explained by ZetaWorlds not letting avatars from lots of grids in for reliability reasons.

    Alternate Metaverse is actually balanced. It's the fifth-busiest grid with 2,025 MAU and the fifth-largest grid with 10,178 standard regions. This may not seem balanced, but AMV residents love to build big, too. Grid owners Cataplexia Numbers and Clifford Hanger seem to almost always build vars because they always need lots of room. Welcome and Annex are exceptions because they're practically entirely indoors. Chris McCracken builds vars so big that even he gets lost without a proper map. And AMV was where Jimmy Olsen inflated Norway-themed Alfheim from an already respectable 4x4 with lots of details to a 10x10 giant before it sadly vanished. At the same time, AMV has loads of events which also attract Hypergridders.

    GroovyVerse, sixth-largest at 7,837 standard regions and 23rd-busiest with only 514 MAUs, is a community effort in building a whole lot of land. It's actually building a sim-crossing railway network which by now may be larger than the one in the Wolf Territories, and that one already takes quite some time to travel.
    One reason for the lack of activity may be because only few sims are advertised on OpenSimWorld, and so only few people know about them in the first place. That's partly because of @Hyacinth 🏳️‍⚧️ ☮️'s very justified love-hate relationship towards OSW to say the least. In fact, she "loves" OSW so much that she is working on an alternative to replace it.

    Shoalwater Bay is another interesting case: The tenth-largest grid with 1,072 standard regions isn't even in the top 25 of busiest grids. The reason becomes apparent if you look at its grid map, and the grid name is a dead giveaway: It's a sailing grid with only 49 adjacent sims, six of which are 8x8 vars, the other 43 being 4x4 vars. Over half a dozen sims don't even seem to have any actual land on them.

    The GBG Metaverse, formerly GreekLife Breath Grid, is the opposite case. It's the third-busiest grid with 2,239 MAU, but only the tenth-largest grid with only 956 standard regions. This is astounding for two reasons. One, GBG is the result of two grid mergers. First, the Tranquility Grid was merged into the younger Little Breath Grid. And then Little Breath merged with GreekLife. Two, GreekLife used to make renting at least one sim mandatory for every resident. GBG has switched to a different model: Your inventory is limited to 5,000 items unless you rent land or donate. Still, I wonder where the discrepancy comes from, seeing as GBG doesn't have any super-popular events or freebie sims.

    Even more extreme: Darkheart's Playground and WaterSplash are number seven and eight in MAU, both between 1,600 and 1,700. But neither is even in the top 40 of largest grids. However, both are famous for one very popular freebie sim each, Darkheart's Boutiques and iPleasure respectively, the latter being the home of the R. Lion "brand". I think both grids have only got about half a dozen sims each or so. So either the stats are vastly dominated by Hypergridders, or people create alts on these grid to make grubbing freebies and passing them on to their mains easier and circumvent grid blocks. For example, AFAIK, ZetaWorlds has blocked both, and in the case of Darkheart's Playground, the block is mutual. I'd really like to see the faces of the users when they discover that most content offered on both grids is no-transfer.

    Last but not least, Neverworld makes me wonder, too. It reported 1,101 MAUs, ranking ninth, on only 343 standard regions, ranking 22th. And that's considering this grid is mostly vars, too. Most of it is joined together in one big mainland connected by a network of streets. A lot of it is owned by grid owner Govega Sachertorte and split into parcels for everyone to rent for free, even Hypergridders. Still, most of that land is vacant, maybe also because you can't set your home out in the Hypergrid, so it isn't quite useful as a dwelling-place unless you're a Neverworlder. What probably causes the most traffic, however, are Nexus Storm's several large freebie sims.

    #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Grid #WolfTerritories #WolfTerritoriesGrid #WolfGrid #OSgrid #Kitely #ZetaWorlds #AlternateMetaverse #AMV #GroovyVerse #ShoalwaterBay #GBG #DarkheartsPlayground #WaterSplash #Neverworld #OpenSimStatistics
  3. CW: Pondering the OpenSim grid statistics for May; CW: long (over 7,000 characters)
    What really gave me to think when looking at Hypergrid Business' OpenSim statistics for May was the varying discrepancy between active users, Hypergridders included, and land mass on the various grids.

    The biggest grids in land mass are both special cases. Being the second-largest grid with 29,248 standard regions, the Wolf Territories Grid is one because it's largely varsims, and at least the mainland is varsims from 4x4 upward. Whereas other grids are dominated by standard-region-sized sims, a typical Wolf Territories sim is 16 of these. Also, @Lone Wolf himself is probably still the owner of the most land in the metaverse. At the same time, the Wolf Territories Grid tops the list of most active grids with 6,232 MAUs.

    OSgrid, largest with 32,547 standard regions, easily leaving Second Life in the dust, and second-busiest with 5,186 MAUs, is a special case because it doesn't offer land rentals. Everything that isn't an official sim is attached to the grid and hosted by its users. Size-wise, that goes from single personal sims hosted at home to whole archipelagos of varsims like Tropicana Estates (which used to be a whole lot bigger even) or Nautilus Estates. Technically speaking, OSgrid is the one grid with the most region servers. Also, for this reason, OSgrid's land mass always takes a little dive whenever they do a clean-up and remove dead sims from their map because many don't shut their sims down properly when removing them. At the same time, of course, OSgrid is a popular destination for Hypergridders even beyond parking your avatar at Lbsa Plaza.

    Now let's take a look at some other grids.

    Kitely is the third-largest grid with 18,077 standard regions, but the 20th-busiest grid with only 627 MAU. But it's a popular builders' grid due to its stability. Kitely's trick to cope with that much land is to shut all sims down when they aren't populated and start them up again when someone wants to enter them, a trick that was later re-implemented by DreamGrid.

    ZetaWorlds is the fourth-largest grid with 12,910 standard regions, but only the 21st-busiest grid with only 596 MAU. I doubt that this includes the 3rd Wind community. Still, one reason ZetaWorlds is so large and underpopulated is its huge ocean, consisting of dozens upon dozens of varsims; I think it was 3x3s. It's so big that it takes well over five minutes to cross in a motor boat at full speed. Even Stark, a nudism-encouraging archipelago of 14 4x4 vars, that's still 224 standard regions in the hands of three owners, doesn't make up a large percentage of ZetaWorlds' land area. The lack of MAU can be explained by ZetaWorlds not letting avatars from lots of grids in for reliability reasons.

    Alternate Metaverse is actually balanced. It's the fifth-busiest grid with 2,025 MAU and the fifth-largest grid with 10,178 standard regions. This may not seem balanced, but AMV residents love to build big, too. Grid owners Cataplexia Numbers and Clifford Hanger seem to almost always build vars because they always need lots of room. Welcome and Annex are exceptions because they're practically entirely indoors. Chris McCracken builds vars so big that even he gets lost without a proper map. And AMV was where Jimmy Olsen inflated Norway-themed Alfheim from an already respectable 4x4 with lots of details to a 10x10 giant before it sadly vanished. At the same time, AMV has loads of events which also attract Hypergridders.

    GroovyVerse, sixth-largest at 7,837 standard regions and 23rd-busiest with only 514 MAUs, is a community effort in building a whole lot of land. It's actually building a sim-crossing railway network which by now may be larger than the one in the Wolf Territories, and that one already takes quite some time to travel.
    One reason for the lack of activity may be because only few sims are advertised on OpenSimWorld, and so only few people know about them in the first place. That's partly because of @Hyacinth 🏳️‍⚧️ ☮️'s very justified love-hate relationship towards OSW to say the least. In fact, she "loves" OSW so much that she is working on an alternative to replace it.

    Shoalwater Bay is another interesting case: The tenth-largest grid with 1,072 standard regions isn't even in the top 25 of busiest grids. The reason becomes apparent if you look at its grid map, and the grid name is a dead giveaway: It's a sailing grid with only 49 adjacent sims, six of which are 8x8 vars, the other 43 being 4x4 vars. Over half a dozen sims don't even seem to have any actual land on them.

    The GBG Metaverse, formerly GreekLife Breath Grid, is the opposite case. It's the third-busiest grid with 2,239 MAU, but only the tenth-largest grid with only 956 standard regions. This is astounding for two reasons. One, GBG is the result of two grid mergers. First, the Tranquility Grid was merged into the younger Little Breath Grid. And then Little Breath merged with GreekLife. Two, GreekLife used to make renting at least one sim mandatory for every resident. GBG has switched to a different model: Your inventory is limited to 5,000 items unless you rent land or donate. Still, I wonder where the discrepancy comes from, seeing as GBG doesn't have any super-popular events or freebie sims.

    Even more extreme: Darkheart's Playground and WaterSplash are number seven and eight in MAU, both between 1,600 and 1,700. But neither is even in the top 40 of largest grids. However, both are famous for one very popular freebie sim each, Darkheart's Boutiques and iPleasure respectively, the latter being the home of the R. Lion "brand". I think both grids have only got about half a dozen sims each or so. So either the stats are vastly dominated by Hypergridders, or people create alts on these grid to make grubbing freebies and passing them on to their mains easier and circumvent grid blocks. For example, AFAIK, ZetaWorlds has blocked both, and in the case of Darkheart's Playground, the block is mutual. I'd really like to see the faces of the users when they discover that most content offered on both grids is no-transfer.

    Last but not least, Neverworld makes me wonder, too. It reported 1,101 MAUs, ranking ninth, on only 343 standard regions, ranking 22th. And that's considering this grid is mostly vars, too. Most of it is joined together in one big mainland connected by a network of streets. A lot of it is owned by grid owner Govega Sachertorte and split into parcels for everyone to rent for free, even Hypergridders. Still, most of that land is vacant, maybe also because you can't set your home out in the Hypergrid, so it isn't quite useful as a dwelling-place unless you're a Neverworlder. What probably causes the most traffic, however, are Nexus Storm's several large freebie sims.

    #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Grid #WolfTerritories #WolfTerritoriesGrid #WolfGrid #OSgrid #Kitely #ZetaWorlds #AlternateMetaverse #AMV #GroovyVerse #ShoalwaterBay #GBG #DarkheartsPlayground #WaterSplash #Neverworld #OpenSimStatistics
  4. CW: Pondering the OpenSim grid statistics for May; CW: long (over 7,000 characters)
    What really gave me to think when looking at Hypergrid Business' OpenSim statistics for May was the varying discrepancy between active users, Hypergridders included, and land mass on the various grids.

    The biggest grids in land mass are both special cases. Being the second-largest grid with 29,248 standard regions, the Wolf Territories Grid is one because it's largely varsims, and at least the mainland is varsims from 4x4 upward. Whereas other grids are dominated by standard-region-sized sims, a typical Wolf Territories sim is 16 of these. Also, @Lone Wolf himself is probably still the owner of the most land in the metaverse. At the same time, the Wolf Territories Grid tops the list of most active grids with 6,232 MAUs.

    OSgrid, largest with 32,547 standard regions, easily leaving Second Life in the dust, and second-busiest with 5,186 MAUs, is a special case because it doesn't offer land rentals. Everything that isn't an official sim is attached to the grid and hosted by its users. Size-wise, that goes from single personal sims hosted at home to whole archipelagos of varsims like Tropicana Estates (which used to be a whole lot bigger even) or Nautilus Estates. Technically speaking, OSgrid is the one grid with the most region servers. Also, for this reason, OSgrid's land mass always takes a little dive whenever they do a clean-up and remove dead sims from their map because many don't shut their sims down properly when removing them. At the same time, of course, OSgrid is a popular destination for Hypergridders even beyond parking your avatar at Lbsa Plaza.

    Now let's take a look at some other grids.

    Kitely is the third-largest grid with 18,077 standard regions, but the 20th-busiest grid with only 627 MAU. But it's a popular builders' grid due to its stability. Kitely's trick to cope with that much land is to shut all sims down when they aren't populated and start them up again when someone wants to enter them, a trick that was later re-implemented by DreamGrid.

    ZetaWorlds is the fourth-largest grid with 12,910 standard regions, but only the 21st-busiest grid with only 596 MAU. I doubt that this includes the 3rd Wind community. Still, one reason ZetaWorlds is so large and underpopulated is its huge ocean, consisting of dozens upon dozens of varsims; I think it was 3x3s. It's so big that it takes well over five minutes to cross in a motor boat at full speed. Even Stark, a nudism-encouraging archipelago of 14 4x4 vars, that's still 224 standard regions in the hands of three owners, doesn't make up a large percentage of ZetaWorlds' land area. The lack of MAU can be explained by ZetaWorlds not letting avatars from lots of grids in for reliability reasons.

    Alternate Metaverse is actually balanced. It's the fifth-busiest grid with 2,025 MAU and the fifth-largest grid with 10,178 standard regions. This may not seem balanced, but AMV residents love to build big, too. Grid owners Cataplexia Numbers and Clifford Hanger seem to almost always build vars because they always need lots of room. Welcome and Annex are exceptions because they're practically entirely indoors. Chris McCracken builds vars so big that even he gets lost without a proper map. And AMV was where Jimmy Olsen inflated Norway-themed Alfheim from an already respectable 4x4 with lots of details to a 10x10 giant before it sadly vanished. At the same time, AMV has loads of events which also attract Hypergridders.

    GroovyVerse, sixth-largest at 7,837 standard regions and 23rd-busiest with only 514 MAUs, is a community effort in building a whole lot of land. It's actually building a sim-crossing railway network which by now may be larger than the one in the Wolf Territories, and that one already takes quite some time to travel.
    One reason for the lack of activity may be because only few sims are advertised on OpenSimWorld, and so only few people know about them in the first place. That's partly because of @Hyacinth 🏳️‍⚧️ ☮️'s very justified love-hate relationship towards OSW to say the least. In fact, she "loves" OSW so much that she is working on an alternative to replace it.

    Shoalwater Bay is another interesting case: The tenth-largest grid with 1,072 standard regions isn't even in the top 25 of busiest grids. The reason becomes apparent if you look at its grid map, and the grid name is a dead giveaway: It's a sailing grid with only 49 adjacent sims, six of which are 8x8 vars, the other 43 being 4x4 vars. Over half a dozen sims don't even seem to have any actual land on them.

    The GBG Metaverse, formerly GreekLife Breath Grid, is the opposite case. It's the third-busiest grid with 2,239 MAU, but only the tenth-largest grid with only 956 standard regions. This is astounding for two reasons. One, GBG is the result of two grid mergers. First, the Tranquility Grid was merged into the younger Little Breath Grid. And then Little Breath merged with GreekLife. Two, GreekLife used to make renting at least one sim mandatory for every resident. GBG has switched to a different model: Your inventory is limited to 5,000 items unless you rent land or donate. Still, I wonder where the discrepancy comes from, seeing as GBG doesn't have any super-popular events or freebie sims.

    Even more extreme: Darkheart's Playground and WaterSplash are number seven and eight in MAU, both between 1,600 and 1,700. But neither is even in the top 40 of largest grids. However, both are famous for one very popular freebie sim each, Darkheart's Boutiques and iPleasure respectively, the latter being the home of the R. Lion "brand". I think both grids have only got about half a dozen sims each or so. So either the stats are vastly dominated by Hypergridders, or people create alts on these grid to make grubbing freebies and passing them on to their mains easier and circumvent grid blocks. For example, AFAIK, ZetaWorlds has blocked both, and in the case of Darkheart's Playground, the block is mutual. I'd really like to see the faces of the users when they discover that most content offered on both grids is no-transfer.

    Last but not least, Neverworld makes me wonder, too. It reported 1,101 MAUs, ranking ninth, on only 343 standard regions, ranking 22th. And that's considering this grid is mostly vars, too. Most of it is joined together in one big mainland connected by a network of streets. A lot of it is owned by grid owner Govega Sachertorte and split into parcels for everyone to rent for free, even Hypergridders. Still, most of that land is vacant, maybe also because you can't set your home out in the Hypergrid, so it isn't quite useful as a dwelling-place unless you're a Neverworlder. What probably causes the most traffic, however, are Nexus Storm's several large freebie sims.

    #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Grid #WolfTerritories #WolfTerritoriesGrid #WolfGrid #OSgrid #Kitely #ZetaWorlds #AlternateMetaverse #AMV #GroovyVerse #ShoalwaterBay #GBG #DarkheartsPlayground #WaterSplash #Neverworld #OpenSimStatistics
  5. CW: Pondering the OpenSim grid statistics for May; CW: long (over 7,000 characters)
    What really gave me to think when looking at Hypergrid Business' OpenSim statistics for May was the varying discrepancy between active users, Hypergridders included, and land mass on the various grids.

    The biggest grids in land mass are both special cases. Being the second-largest grid with 29,248 standard regions, the Wolf Territories Grid is one because it's largely varsims, and at least the mainland is varsims from 4x4 upward. Whereas other grids are dominated by standard-region-sized sims, a typical Wolf Territories sim is 16 of these. Also, @Lone Wolf himself is probably still the owner of the most land in the metaverse. At the same time, the Wolf Territories Grid tops the list of most active grids with 6,232 MAUs.

    OSgrid, largest with 32,547 standard regions, easily leaving Second Life in the dust, and second-busiest with 5,186 MAUs, is a special case because it doesn't offer land rentals. Everything that isn't an official sim is attached to the grid and hosted by its users. Size-wise, that goes from single personal sims hosted at home to whole archipelagos of varsims like Tropicana Estates (which used to be a whole lot bigger even) or Nautilus Estates. Technically speaking, OSgrid is the one grid with the most region servers. Also, for this reason, OSgrid's land mass always takes a little dive whenever they do a clean-up and remove dead sims from their map because many don't shut their sims down properly when removing them. At the same time, of course, OSgrid is a popular destination for Hypergridders even beyond parking your avatar at Lbsa Plaza.

    Now let's take a look at some other grids.

    Kitely is the third-largest grid with 18,077 standard regions, but the 20th-busiest grid with only 627 MAU. But it's a popular builders' grid due to its stability. Kitely's trick to cope with that much land is to shut all sims down when they aren't populated and start them up again when someone wants to enter them, a trick that was later re-implemented by DreamGrid.

    ZetaWorlds is the fourth-largest grid with 12,910 standard regions, but only the 21st-busiest grid with only 596 MAU. I doubt that this includes the 3rd Wind community. Still, one reason ZetaWorlds is so large and underpopulated is its huge ocean, consisting of dozens upon dozens of varsims; I think it was 3x3s. It's so big that it takes well over five minutes to cross in a motor boat at full speed. Even Stark, a nudism-encouraging archipelago of 14 4x4 vars, that's still 224 standard regions in the hands of three owners, doesn't make up a large percentage of ZetaWorlds' land area. The lack of MAU can be explained by ZetaWorlds not letting avatars from lots of grids in for reliability reasons.

    Alternate Metaverse is actually balanced. It's the fifth-busiest grid with 2,025 MAU and the fifth-largest grid with 10,178 standard regions. This may not seem balanced, but AMV residents love to build big, too. Grid owners Cataplexia Numbers and Clifford Hanger seem to almost always build vars because they always need lots of room. Welcome and Annex are exceptions because they're practically entirely indoors. Chris McCracken builds vars so big that even he gets lost without a proper map. And AMV was where Jimmy Olsen inflated Norway-themed Alfheim from an already respectable 4x4 with lots of details to a 10x10 giant before it sadly vanished. At the same time, AMV has loads of events which also attract Hypergridders.

    GroovyVerse, sixth-largest at 7,837 standard regions and 23rd-busiest with only 514 MAUs, is a community effort in building a whole lot of land. It's actually building a sim-crossing railway network which by now may be larger than the one in the Wolf Territories, and that one already takes quite some time to travel.
    One reason for the lack of activity may be because only few sims are advertised on OpenSimWorld, and so only few people know about them in the first place. That's partly because of @Hyacinth 🏳️‍⚧️ ☮️'s very justified love-hate relationship towards OSW to say the least. In fact, she "loves" OSW so much that she is working on an alternative to replace it.

    Shoalwater Bay is another interesting case: The tenth-largest grid with 1,072 standard regions isn't even in the top 25 of busiest grids. The reason becomes apparent if you look at its grid map, and the grid name is a dead giveaway: It's a sailing grid with only 49 adjacent sims, six of which are 8x8 vars, the other 43 being 4x4 vars. Over half a dozen sims don't even seem to have any actual land on them.

    The GBG Metaverse, formerly GreekLife Breath Grid, is the opposite case. It's the third-busiest grid with 2,239 MAU, but only the tenth-largest grid with only 956 standard regions. This is astounding for two reasons. One, GBG is the result of two grid mergers. First, the Tranquility Grid was merged into the younger Little Breath Grid. And then Little Breath merged with GreekLife. Two, GreekLife used to make renting at least one sim mandatory for every resident. GBG has switched to a different model: Your inventory is limited to 5,000 items unless you rent land or donate. Still, I wonder where the discrepancy comes from, seeing as GBG doesn't have any super-popular events or freebie sims.

    Even more extreme: Darkheart's Playground and WaterSplash are number seven and eight in MAU, both between 1,600 and 1,700. But neither is even in the top 40 of largest grids. However, both are famous for one very popular freebie sim each, Darkheart's Boutiques and iPleasure respectively, the latter being the home of the R. Lion "brand". I think both grids have only got about half a dozen sims each or so. So either the stats are vastly dominated by Hypergridders, or people create alts on these grid to make grubbing freebies and passing them on to their mains easier and circumvent grid blocks. For example, AFAIK, ZetaWorlds has blocked both, and in the case of Darkheart's Playground, the block is mutual. I'd really like to see the faces of the users when they discover that most content offered on both grids is no-transfer.

    Last but not least, Neverworld makes me wonder, too. It reported 1,101 MAUs, ranking ninth, on only 343 standard regions, ranking 22th. And that's considering this grid is mostly vars, too. Most of it is joined together in one big mainland connected by a network of streets. A lot of it is owned by grid owner Govega Sachertorte and split into parcels for everyone to rent for free, even Hypergridders. Still, most of that land is vacant, maybe also because you can't set your home out in the Hypergrid, so it isn't quite useful as a dwelling-place unless you're a Neverworlder. What probably causes the most traffic, however, are Nexus Storm's several large freebie sims.

    #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Grid #WolfTerritories #WolfTerritoriesGrid #WolfGrid #OSgrid #Kitely #ZetaWorlds #AlternateMetaverse #AMV #GroovyVerse #ShoalwaterBay #GBG #DarkheartsPlayground #WaterSplash #Neverworld #OpenSimStatistics
  6. I've just taken a look at the OpenSim statistics on Hypergrid Business from May 15th and compared them with the, admittedly more recent, #SecondLife land stats on Grid Survey from May 28th.

    For the record, the latter reported 27,789 regions, 11 more than around May 15th, 18,436 of which are private estates.

    #OSgrid stays the biggest grid, and it's still hot on Second Life's heels with 27,145 standard regions. Granted, except for official sims, they're all hosted by their residents instead of by OSgrid itself and attached to the grid, but they still count. Not all are always online, but the same applies to Second Life, only to lesser degrees.

    #WolfTerritoriesGrid remains number two amongst the grids that sent their stats with a massive growth spurt. 21,520 standard regions, even though they're mostly 4x4 varsims (one sim is 16 regions instead of only one). This means that @Lone Wolf owns more land than all Second Life private estates put together. Also, that's more than three quarters of Second Life's entire land area. And AFAIK, none of it is attached. It all runs on his servers.

    Add #Kitely, and you get more than two and a half times Second Life's land area. Kitely alone reported 18,366 standard regions, almost the size of Second Life's private estates.

    Add #ZetaWorlds and #AlternateMetaverse, and you have the five biggest grids that have reported stats and over three times Second Life with almost a combined 85,000 standard regions.

    The 33 biggest grids put together make up four times Second Life. However, if you remove grids that aren't on the #Hypergrid, my estimation is that you'll need about 60 to 65 grids. And the 282 grids that have reported stats, of now 428 active grids known to Hypergrid Business, aren't sufficient to reach five times Second Life; their combined land area is 117,869 standard regions.

    At the same time, the same 282 grids reported 41,620 active users. Even if this seems to take alts into account, there's no wondering what the cause for #EmptyWorldSyndrome might be, I guess. Kitely, as an extreme example, reported a bit more than 21 standard regions per user.

    #OpenSim #OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #OpenSimStatistics
  7. Not to mention that the #OpenSimulator community has been using the term #Metaverse both for single grids and the #Hypergrid long before it was cool.

    October 2021: Mark Zuckerberg announces that #Facebook will change its name to #Meta and invent #TheMetaverse from scratch, later to be known as #HorizonWorlds.

    December 2nd, 2019: #AlternateMetaverse launches (#^https://alternatemetaverse.com). Neither a small nor an obscure #OpenSim #grid. And it carries "Metaverse" in its domain. (Yes, there'll be a birthday party.)

    Ca. 2016: The #InfiniteMetaverseAlliance (#^http://infinitemetaverse.com/) is founded. There's that word again.

    2008: One of the first public OpenSim grids and the first one based in Germany is launched. For 14 years, until it shut down in July 2022, it bore the name #Metropolis Metaversum. Yes, as early as 2008, predating even the announcement of "Facebook's Metaverse" by a whopping 13 years.

    2008, earlier: The Hypergrid is introduced. For the first time ever, #VirtualWorlds run by different operators on independent machines anywhere in the world can connect to each other, allowing an avatar registered in one world to travel to other worlds.

    And even that wasn't the first time that the term "Metaverse" was used in conjunction with OpenSim.

    Not only have interconnected independent virtual worlds been around for almost a decade and a half, but the word "Metaverse" has been used alongside them for just as long.