The 3rd Rock Grid, the second oldest grid in OpenSim, is coming to an end soon.
Florin Spanachi, board member of 3rd Rock Grid, also known as Eldovar Lamilton, said: “Several situations with technical consequences have forced us to close the grid, making further management of the grid impossible.”
The grid lost key technical staff when it left suddenly, according to grid residents. Then another key member, Kira Tiponi, died, leaving the Grid without access to key resources.
3rd Rock Grid is a non-profit organization owned by the Netherlands-based Cultural Harbor Foundation. According to Hypergrid business Records show that it was founded in February 2008, making it the second oldest OpenSim grid after OSgrid.
“Technical help is not available and fundraising is not helpful,” Spanachi added.
He said the grid was contacting active users to manage the exit as smoothly as possible.
As of this writing, 3rd Rock Grid has 196 active users, making it the 41st largest by number of active users.
It also reports a total land area equivalent to 872 standard tracts, making it the 14th largest grid by land area. Grid also has the fifth largest registered user base with 13,615 registered users.
Saving the grid will require a complete rebuild, according to Third Rock Grid board member Tara Dockery, also known to the world as Thoria Millgrove.
“Due to a series of unfortunate events that had technical implications, inaccessible servers, and over a decade of technical debt in our asset database, we were faced with a grid that was difficult to manage,” she said. Hypergrid business. “There are people investigating how to move forward and as many rescues as possible have been made, but no firm decisions have been made other than to close the existing grid on May 15.”
The OpenSim community is disappointed and saddened.
The OpenSim community was saddened to hear this news.
“3rd Rock Grid gives me really special memories,” said Marianna Monentes. “I visited as often as I could and was very sad to hear that one of my key skills had passed away,” she said. We offer our sincere condolences to the grid owners and the entire community.”
Monentes is a world-renowned jewelry designer.
“We are deeply sorry for what happened to them,” said Andrew Simpson, owner of AnSky Grid.
“It’s always sad to see the grid collapse, regardless of the reason,” said Ansjela Amat, owner of Ansjelagrid, which, like 3rd Rock, is also based in the Netherlands.
“This is sad news,” said Myron Curtis, who said he could provide resources for grid or web hosting. Curtis is the owner of A Dimension Beyond, an OpenSim hosting company, and founder of Virtual Worlds Grid.
provide help
In fact, many grid owners are offering help.
One of these grid owners is Terry Ford, original founder 3rd Rock Grid. Ford currently runs DigiWorldz, a commercial grid and OpenSim hosting company, but even after he leaves the company, he continues to provide technical support to 3rd Rock.
“I don’t want to see 3rd Rock Grid go because it’s such an important part of OpenSim’s history,” he said.
3rd Rock is the first grid to have a permit-to-work system and the first to have work economics, he said. We have also hosted many great events and fundraisers over the years, including several for Doctors Without Borders.
“There are many current and past members of 3rd Rock Grid, myself included, and some who have now passed on, who have put a lot of effort into making sure we have a great grid to call home,” he said. “I offered to help in any way I could and reached out to many 3rd Rock Grid members who felt the same way.”
Some grid owners have suggested that it might be possible to reconfigure the grid by exporting and re-uploading region files, also known as OARs, for individual regions. OpenSim also supports individual user inventory export.
If the power grid is not rescued, residents will have to find new homes.
3rd Rock Grid residents who can obtain a copy or OAR region export file or IAR inventory export file will also have many grids ready to welcome them.
“If any of our residents are able to extract OAR and need temporary housing, we are willing to set up a temporary home in the 4×4 area,” said CatGrid owner Mike Cataldo, also known as Michael Timeless. Within the world. “Most of my residents are older veterans, but we are always willing to help those in need.”
He said people can contact him directly at timeless.owltiger@gmail.com.
“My grid is not as big as 3rd Rock Grid, but I have spent time there in the past,” he said.
AvatarLife is also offering free land to 3rd Rock Grid residents.
“If they have an OAR file for their land, they can bring it to AvatarLife without any cost, as land on AvatarLife is free,” said Sushant KC, CEO, AvatarLife. He said he heard 3rd Rock Grid was closing. .
“We offer 24/7 technical support if you want to restart 3rd Rock Grid on a new server,” said Nick Mit, CEO of GBG World, also known as Anytos Atlas in-world. 3rd rock grid.
GBG World also has free home lots and offers discounted local hosting to former 3rd Rock residents, he added.
Paul Clevett, also known as Lone Wolf in-world, said: “We are truly saddened by the closure of 3rd Rock and glad to know that we can help both the 3rd Rock team and all of our users in some way.” He is the director of Wolf Software Systems Ltd., the company that owns OpenSim’s largest and most popular world, Wolf Territories Grid.
he said before Hypergrid business He is willing to help other grids with technical issues.
He said some 3rd Rock residents have already approached him. “We’re willing to help,” he said. “If they rent an area, we will give them a bonus prim and keep them together in the same area so they can maintain their community.”
But as a grid that goes back to the early days of OpenSim, these technical challenges can be serious.
Kitely co-founder and CEO Ilan Tochner has said for years that revitalizing the grid requires a lot more work than people realize. “The longer the grid, the more technical expertise is needed to overcome all the problems that accumulate over time,” he said.
And when these power grids shut down, the losses are even more devastating for communities.
“It is tragic for the power grid to shut down and for residents to lose their homes and all the content they have collected in their inventory,” he said. “It’s especially sad if that grid is a grid that has been an important part of the OpenSim ecosystem for a long time. 3rd rock There’s a grid.”
Kitely not only operates one of OpenSim’s largest commercial grids, it also operates OpenSim’s largest online marketplace, the Kitely Market.
For customers who have purchased and delivered content to 3rd Rock Grid, Tochner said there are tools available to make it easy for sellers to re-deliver content to all of their customers.
“This Kitely Market feature is designed to allow sellers to easily and reliably help people recover items lost when the grid goes off,” he said.