Exodus from InWorldz As Diehard Remainers Promise New World

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

InWorldz II is now being actively worked on and those close to Beth Reischl are fully behind the move now the GoFundMe appeal has been stopped after fierce accusations of bad dealing and bait and switch tactics which some claim amounts to fraud. The community is hopelessly split between those that have faith in Reischl and those that have had enough. There is already an exodus from InWorldz under way where residents and merchants are frantically packaging up all they can before the servers shutdown today, Friday 27th. They are moving onto other grids in sizable numbers so I am being told. Meanwhile, the tech-heads among the Remainers are busy setting up new servers and migrating data across including avatar registrations, groups and filtered inventory for those not objecting to the transfer of content to the new grid.

No date has been mentioned for InWorldz II to open but it will probably be several weeks given the amount of work to do. When it does open some may well return so for some of the departing refugees it might be a two-way tip - hard to say really. But there is a lot of bad feeling and people feel put out losing stuff and having to move anyway. The longer it takes to rebuild will also play a part in determining how many will return. But there is plenty of places to go anyway and some grids are already welcoming the new comers and doing all they can to help them.

In a comment on Hypergrid Business, Rene said "We are receiving a goodly influx of IW immigrants in DiscoveryGrid - Most of the IW people coming here marvel at Hypergrid and the ability to traverse the greater Metaverse. I'm sure other grids are receiving IW people, so lets help out the people who chose to move onto OpenSim, show them the places to get started, explain large regions, good crossings, and more. Let's get the welcome wagons happening."

One of several DigiWorldz promotional images for affiliates.

This made me wonder if any of the bigger commercial grids like Kitely Virtual and DigiWorldz were seeing a similar influx so I sent an email to Terry (Butch Arnold) of DigiWorldz asking and he replied, "We have received many new InWorldz users over the past few days. We've added approx. 150 new users to our system since 7/24/2018 and we've also added approx. 42 new regions in that same period." I was quite surprised by the numbers but it may well reflect the extent of the bad feeling amongst IW refugees. Anyway, I also asked Ilan Tochner at Kitely grid, which is well known for it's unique cloud-based worlds on demand, to see if they were experiencing a similar influx.

Ilan Tochner replied, "We've seen a significant number of people migrate into Kitely as a result of Inworldz's pending shutdown. Many of them have been ordering new Kitely worlds and buying items from Kitely Market to start building up their new avatar's inventories. We've also seen an increased number of content creators opening new Kitely Market stores."

Welcome to Kitely Virtual

Opensim code has come on leaps and bounds in recent years and there is a lot more security offered. Kitely has added code of their own too such as proprietary cloud-based Inventory and Asset systems that work significantly better than the ones that come with OpenSim and backup content to multiple datacenters across the world to prevent data loss.  Ilan told me, "Kitely has been open to business since March 2011 and offers 16-region sized private estates (VarRegions) that allow for up to 120,000 prims and 80 avatars for just $39.95/month. We've implemented export controls to protect content creators creations while at the same time enabling people to easily export their worlds to filtered OAR files on-demand." See: https://www.kitely.com/virtual-world-news/2013/06/12/export-permission-implemented/ "I think it's important," Tochner said, "for people searching for a new virtual home to consider the stability and performance of the grid they select for storing their avatar and their land. Almost all OpenSim grids worth visiting are now open to the Hypergrid thus making it less important to select the same provider as your friends as you'll be able to use the Hypergrid to visit them no matter what grid they have chosen themselves."

I asked Terry how he felt about the situation with InWorldz and what he could do for the refugees. He said "It's a sad situation when any grid closes, but especially one with the reputation and history Inworldz has. We are pleased many of the Inworldz users have chosen to try DigiWorldz and we welcome them with open arms. We'll work hard to make sure their experience in DigiWorldz is the best it can be and by all means, we'll continue our tradition of doing whatever we can to help protect the rights of not only our residents/creators, but any resident in any grid."

Kitely Market online & can deliver to any grid!

Kitely also has a very popular Market Place. Here is what Ilan Tochner said of it, "One thing that is important to keep in mind is that if someone wishes to sell in Kitely Market they'll need to have a Kitely avatar to be able to do so as items are added to Kitely Market product listings via direct access to the uploading avatar's inventory and that only works with Kitely avatars. Kitely avatars are also the only ones that get direct deliveries of their Kitely Market purchases into their inventories. Avatars on other grids need to use our Hypergrid delivery system which is less robust." 

See:https://kitely.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/doc/pages/6914050/Kitely+Market+Delivery+to+Other+Grids .

There are other options too depending on one's desire to do business or settle into one of the community grids such as OSgrid and Metropolis. These grids are well known for their share and share alike culture which others say amounts to tolerance of copybotting and even Communism! It is true they don't have grid currency either but not everyone on those grids thinks or behaves like a Marxist and some do run businesses and sell products for Gloebits which is a universal currency and given that people connect their own instances to the grids they can indeed set up a currency like Gloebit on the server running their simulator. It only takes a viewer with Gloebit enabled to spend money in enabled regions.

Upgrade your viewer for an improved commerce experience.

Outworldz Dreamworld

Anyone can set up an Opensim instance at home or on a VPS server. It is less complicated than setting up Halcyon even. In fact, the Outworldz DreamWorld is a free, pre-packaged Windows-compatible virtual reality Opensimulator system that is easy to install, easy to run, and powerful. It is free and open source. 

You can download it from https://www.outworldz.com/outworldz_installer/

 Tweet

GoFundMe Wont Save InWorldz But New Grid Might Emerge

Talla @ InWorldz

The GoFundMe to save InWorldz has been a spectacular success, reaching near its $17,000 goal in just two days. But we are now told the money wont be available in time to pay off the demand from RackSpace where InWorldz servers are maintained. Merchants and residents are being told to save everything they can and the technical staff are working to provide OAR's and opening sandboxes for those who don't have land to package inventory. The activity has been frantic as the Friday deadline approaches when the servers will be shut down and everything left will be lost. It appears now that this will be the outcome regardless of the success of the GoFundMe appeal and it has lead to calls for a new grid to be set up on the proceeds of the fund. In an update to the GoFundMe appeal, Beth Reischl (Elenia), wrote, "Wow! Everyone has been amazing! So here's where things stand. I asked in discord this afternoon, once we hit our goal, then what? What about next month? After much agonizing and upset, it was suggested by the residents that we use these monies to start a new grid. We'll be able to move OARS, profiles, groups. Inventory can only be taken that can be put in a box to be OAR filed. We'll be opening the sandbox for people who have no region to place their items and can get them back."

Kings Landing - Game of Thrones by Beth Tyrell

She went on, "If you are NOT ok with this, I urge you to please withdraw your support on the page. I do not want to take anyone's money who is not ok with this!" Reading Discord and other comments, it is clear now not everyone is happy with the change of plan. There is a sizable group close to Reischl that want a "new" InWorldz but there are also many voices raised against it and some of those are questioning the ethics of changing the GoFundMe aims. Moreover, some residents are openly hostile to the plan. On the GoFundMe comments, someone wrote:

"I am sorry to hear of the troubles InWorldz is having. However, I will not give my permission for the Full Perm items which I have sold on IW to be exported to any other grid. They were sold on InWorldz for the sole purpose of being used on InWorldz and NOT to be exported to another grid. Such an action would be in total infringement of my Intellectual Property Rights and the intellectual property rights of all other Full Perm Creators who uploaded their work to InWorldz in good faith and according to the assurances of InWorldz management that our intellectual property would be protected: "LICENSE TERMS AND OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TERMS You retain copyright and other intellectual property rights with respect to content you create InWorldz to the extent that you have such rights under applicable law. InWorldz retains ownership of the account and related data, regardless of intellectual property rights you may have in content you create or otherwise own. Even though InWorldz retains this right, your intellectual property will not be used without prior permission and or licensing to InWorldz."

Steampunk Isle Calia Estates

Another said, "Ok STOP! the fund raising was to save IW not to make a new grid!" And yet another was outright hostile, "It was not 'suggested by the residents' that you start a new grid, it was decided by a small clique of people who rudely refuse to listen to the views of others. Most residents don't even know about this yet. I think you have taken money under false pretences. The initial 'cause' has been replaced by totally different one. You should refund all donations and start again clearly stating exactly what you are raising the money for. As it stands this could be viewed as fraud."

I have kept the names back of those commenting but they can be read on the GoFundMe page so there are arguments for and against and there is no clear idea if a new grid is possible. For one thing it would need to be a Halcyon server because all the OARS are Halcyon code and none are going to work in other grids so it appears. Anyone hoping that a new InWorldz will run on Opensim I am sure will be very disappointed and I have yet to find out if any that have left and gone to other grids have been able to move their content. Likely they will be able to if they have the original inventory before it was ever uploaded to InWorldz but for many, those that have been in InWorldz for years and created there, I suspect they have no choice but to go with whatever is setup to replace the InWorldz grid.

Castle at Inland waterway IW scenic by Yadni Monde

Presently, everything is in the air and in the days and weeks to come a new InWorldz will emerge from the ashes of the old one - probably. I think one thing is for sure though, if Beth Reischl manages to pull it off and keep as many on board with the new plan then I doubt the grid will run as a  business in the same sense that it was. What I mean is that it is quite likely those that held faith and voted with their money will want more say in the running of the grid and that may well be a challenge for Beth Reischl who has held a firm hand on the helm at InWorldz since she and others founded it ten years ago. 

Update: InWorldz cofounder and former CTO David Daeschler has posted a statement on Hypergrid Business expressing doubts about a new grid and making it clear he has not been involved with InWorld management since 2016 so has no knowledge of the current affair. He said "InWorldz will always hold a special place in my heart."

There has also been heated comments on G+ Opensim Virtual community about all this. 

Tweet

InWorldz Grid Fighting to Survive!

InWorldz announced the grid was to close just a day ago but after an outpouring of Resident grief and worries over lost money and content, Beth Reischl, leading founder of the grid 10 years ago, set up a GoFundMe and is appealing for help to save the virtual world so many have come to love and call home.

Reischl has blamed travel-related communication problems, bureaucratic mistakes and other issues resulted in the shutdown of the grid’s PayPal accounts and the calling in of the company’s business loans. Hypergrid Business reported this and, quoting InWorldz blog, Reischl also explained "In middle May, we took a loan from LoanBuilders, a subsidiary of PayPal." All was going well then everything took a down turn. She went on "The first payment was scheduled at the end of May. I received notice from them that it was NSF (Non-Sufficient Funds). I checked our bank account, the monies had not even attempted to be taken and the monies were definitely there."

"Without payment, RackSpace will be shutting our servers down," she went on to say in her initial announcement. "I’ve extended our servers out until Friday, July 27. I can not process cashouts, no payments may be sent out. For that, I’m truly sorry." However, she said she will begin issuing refunds, as much as she can before PayPal shuts access to the accounts, and she recommends customers use the PayPal dispute system on monies they paid to InWorldz which PayPal will have to honour and make refunds from their account although the dispute process may take a short while.

Later in the day Reischl came back with an addendum to her initial announcement, saying "Many of you are not happy over this, and want to do whatever you can to save the grid. I'm down for that! So what I did was set up a GoFundMe that will update your tiers and if we raise the amount needed, the grid will be ok and we'll set up new payment methods. They will not include PayPal. If you want to keep your home, please visit us at: https://www.gofundme.com/inworldz-in-trouble And let's make this happen! I can't stand the idea of going down without a fight, but now it's on our users! YOU!"

InWorldz does, indeed, have a loyal user base but there have been many voices raised against the managment over the years including my own at one time when the InWorldz founders, having migrated from another early start-up based on Opensim code, kept attacking Opensim developers and Hypergrid at a time when InWorldz was itself an early fork of Opensim and little different than the growing number of other grids around. However, although InWorldz has it’s roots in Opensim, it has diverged considerably over the years and now runs on the in-house developed Halcyon platform.

Early on in 2017 Hypergrid Business posted an article "InWorldz stops publishing falling stats" which brought a torrent of heated comments from both Opensim users and InWorldz supporters on the reasons why Reischl suddenly decided to stop giving their monthly traffic stats. The gist of the argument was that InWorldz was losing merchants and users which brought a backlash from the Iz community on HB for the article. A year later HB published a new article, this time headed "InWorldz merchants concerned about future" and reported that the public forum for InWorldz had been closed some time to try to block  complaints.

Not withstanding all the past drama and obvious drop in traffic many merchants remained on the grid and it appears they are willing to help save it because after just a day the fund stands at $11,818 of $17,000 goal. InWorldz is loved by and for its community as much as anything else and it looks like help is on the way. 

 Tweet

Second Life Region Count Falls But Not the Price!

As predicted by Metaverse pundits Second Life, the beleaguered virtual world operated by Linden Lab lost another 9 regions in the past week according to Tyche Shepherd's GridSurvey which took it below the magic 20,000 mark to 19.997. This mark has become a kind of psychological barrier no one really thought would be approached let alone crossed. This portion of the grid is where Linden Lab earns the bulk of it's income from hosting the region simulators but Second Life has actually been in slow decline for several years and is down 4,797 regions since its peak in June, 2010. Regions cost up to $295 a month but just getting a region up is expensive too with an initial charge of $1000 so it's clear the Lab is loosing a lot of their cash flow.

Surprisingly, Linden Lab doesn't appear particularly disturbed by this trend and are even rather upbeat about releasing totally unrelated products to their flagship money spinner and what advances they have made in the platform seem largely ignored, faltering or simply not understood by a lot of the resident population. Certainly, it is doubtful if it would make much difference to the average resident if Linden Lab had never bothered to implement a lot of the updates at all because it should be noted over 80,000 residents had either not bothered or had left it to the very last minute to get the viewer updates we are told are mandatory with the roll out of server side baking. In fact, there has only ever been two basic complaints that mean a whole lot to the majority. Fix the many existing bugs and lag, and reduce the excessive tier pricing for virtual land within the grid.

Linden Lab have a reputation for ignoring the SL resident complaints anyway and their customer service has never been that good but they do seem to think up ways to antagonize their customers on a regular basis like closing the bug reporting Jira system while imposing what, apparently, the majority don't appear to want or care about. Moreover, it has meant disruptive server updates every week which has been going on for several years and has left all kinds of breakage from scripting faults to inventory losses and periods of unexplained and excessive lag. Most annoying for residents is that all this disruption has been going on while the Lab still expected high tier payments.

Unsurprisingly, since 2009 Second Life has seen a steady decline. In that time a full third of the work force has also been sacked, the former CEO, Mark Kingdom resigned, education and none-profit discounts have been scrapped and the Teen grid closed while allowing children onto the, essentially, adult grid. More recently, with a new CEO at the helm, the focus of the company has gone from virtual worlds to investment in the development of video games. Unfortunately, the resident population of Second Life are a rather conservative bunch. They accept change if it clearly benefits them but the kind of change Linden Lab tries to impose dose often actually challenge people who are very set in their ways. But, all of the general complaints aside, the one thing that nearly everyone agrees is an abuse is the excessive charges for land.


When Linden Lab were on a roll around 2006 and the media couldn't get enough stories about Second Life the executives of the company decided to hike prices, increasing the tier on a full (15k prim's) region by a third to $295 and the setup fee to $1000. Later they scraped the significantly cheaper Openspace product and introduced Homesteads with 3750 prim's at around 60% increase in tier making them much more expensive. A lot of people that could not afford the full region pricing had taken an Openspace so they could build their dream home or set up a small store, club or RPG only to see the rent raised by almost two thirds. What happened next was the beginning of the end for Linden Lab's reputation amongst it's long term customers but it would be a long road with many more blunders yet before the grid fell to the magic number of 20,000 paid for regions.

To all intents and purposes Second Life is a social-economic soap opera. There are no end goals like video games have. SL is not a game, pure and simple. It's an adult playground if anything where grown-up's play out all kinds of fantasies and express themselves in many ways. It's a virtual world of endless possibilities that grow out of the collective imagination of the residents. It appears doubtful if Linden Lab executives understands this or if they do at all it might only find expression in contemptuous statements like, "broken people living a rural life". The fact that virtual worlds like Second Life lend themselves to so much creative expression and education seems lost on the company. No, for the bosses it's all about money and how much they can make out of it. They own the product of course and can do what they please but the product is nothing without the residents who spend money. In fact, the residents who interactive with each other breathe life into the product and become an essential part of it. That is the part the company dose not own. That is where the partnership comes in and Linden Labs have never looked upon their residents as partners - just paying customers.

Courtesy of Tyche Shepherd's Grid Survey

To be fair to Linden Lab bosses one can sympathize with the difficulties they face over Land charges. It is not as easy as it sounds to just drop prices given that the whole economic model could be irreversibly damaged by a wrong move. Last Year the Lab held a Weekend give away Special on buying land when they offered a free setup. It worked to some extent and the Lab made sales but the buyers almost certainly had been renting from Land Barons and this, in turn, had a negative effect on the Baron's thinking. The Barons own a huge amount of the land and find themselves swallowing increasing losses on empty sims they can't find tenants for. Offering discounts that appear to damage the Barons is not something to do lightly because its like this; Linden Lab is rather like the Overlord or King who owns all the land and makes grants to his most loyal subjects, the Barons. Privileges in the form of discounts on tier is what they get granted to them. The rest of the population are basically citizens and shop keepers that always pay the top rates albeit in relatively small sums compared to what the Barons are committed to. So the shop keepers make stuff to help off-set tier costs and because those costs are quite high they have to make and try to sell a lot of stuff. The citizens, or consumers, want free places to hangout and perhaps role play but they will buy what the shop keepers sell - some will actually spend quite a lot! The shop keepers and those running venues as clubs, RPGs, sailing and other arts & entertainments generally will more often than not be renting from Barons and so they have to keep working to off-set those costs and try to turn a profit too. They rent from Barons to avoid setup fees and know they are no more committed than the next rent day. So the money moves round the economy.

Now, if the Lab drops tier and maybe makes it possible to buy just one sim then this might upset the balance of the economy for dropping prices too much and too quickly will greatly reduce financial pressure on the shop keepers and venue organizers. Thus, if they don't have to off-set tier costs to the same extent that they were doing this could lead to a drop in the economy and possibly lead to less people bothering to make and sell stuff. In deed, more stuff might be given away free which would create downward pressure on the economy too. Some would take the opportunity to profit of course but if prices are falling eventually the incentive is lost anyway.

Now consider what might happen if more people can buy and own land in Second Life. In Opensim grids land is cheap and people often own vast estates which ends up pretty much empty land since there is not enough traffic to fill it. Second Life is not exactly bursting with traffic these days but if land became very much cheaper it would result in a lot more empty regions and, like Opensim grids, the Lab would find that this becomes a criticism of the platform - lack of users!. Not just that but game organizers and venues all want a slice of the traffic and lowering the entry costs and making it easier for people to set up games and venues just adds to the glut of entertainment for a limited population. Some of the best would probably give up. By contrast, we don't see the same problem in Opensim grids. There is not enough traffic anyway to make many businesses viable yet. What we do see, however, is new grids starting up where selling and renting land is the primary business product. They want content makers and businesses to join them too but, generally, these start-up's focus on an activity like role playing in a particular theme while Second Life plays host to hundreds of themes which all want a slice of the traffic. Opensim traffic is almost invisible, not because there is none, but because it is spread across the Metaverse on so many grids. Apart from the apparent invisibility, there is not a lot of difference between people teleporting  about on the Linden grid or people teleporting between the many Opensim grids that enable Hypergrid travel. The difference is that in Second Life it is easier to setup business but more expensive while a small Opensim grid is cheaper to set up but technically more challenging and not for everyone. But we do see great effort and advances grids like Inworldz, Avination, Kitely and Aurora Sim, developers working away to improve their worlds. Often the developers are in partnership with each other and residents too in ways you wont see between Linden Lab and their residents. And, of course, many grid owners are developers and contribute to the Opensim core. Yes, there are rivalries and competition between Opensim grids. There are shifting loyalties too but still there is a strong spirit of shared destiny and partnership often comes out of that. In fact there is a lot of partnership in Opensim worlds but you wont find a great deal of partnership in Second Life between the Lab and it's residents. The residents are first and foremost merely consumers in Linden thinking. Where the Lab might consider partnership it usually is a one way street where LL gains from the ideas and talents of it's residents but hardly ever puts much money into projects that can truly be called a partnership.

I might be wrong, probably am, but Linden Labs must be struggling with the land pricing decision. They may already be feeling like they are in a Catch 22 situation too for, if they don't drop prices no one is going to buy more land and if they do drop prices then the balance of the economy might be irreversibly damaged so perhaps the answer is to lower tier gradually in steps by maybe 10% percent every six months until it is approximately a third lower than it is today. This should start now and continue into 2014 and perhaps a final drop by the summer. It should drop across the board too and not just for one section of the community so there is no disparity or it will just drive more people away and throw the economy into more confusion and uncertainty.

Another thing the Lab could do is get rid of Linden Homes. In fact, I never did understand why they ever set out to take business away from the land Barons in the first place. It didn't strike me as a smart move making free homes available - most of which are hardly used I might add. I think most residents would have been more interested in an increase in stipend if anything and if it fell to me to decide I would increase the stipend by at least 100 L$ as both an incentive to attract more premium accounts and a way to help stimulate the economy. Yes, the increase would be hard to maintain but it would feed a lot of new money into the economy at a time when budgets are tight in the real world. Hell, the bank rates are the lowest they have ever been so why isn't Linden Lab lowering the costs this way if not on Land pricing?

Tweet