Blogging from my phone and i am really bad at this. Need to buy keyboard, summer time.

The new hypergrid is up and I finally have some time to write something. All the islands are stable now and I can jump in and out to other grids. But it was 5 days of hard work to figure out how to set it up. There is not much documentation to help. The grid is of course behind a router and firewall and is a local grid connect to internet. This creates a lot of problems if you want to connect both inside the network and outside.

Helpful things I have learned.

-- You need a router that can transfer the communication to the different Sims and you need to know how to setup port forwarding.

-- I think you need a domain where you can setup subdomains. Anyway this is how I got it to work. The subdomains do not do much on the internet its for the internal network. The big problem is that a internal network and the internet works the same way but the computers in the internal network do not have any internet IP addresses. And you want to be able to do stuff on the islands even if you are behind the firewall. With a subdomain it is possible for the internal workstations to find for example the sandbox. Then its address is https://sandbox.2worlds2go.eu not much use on the internet for that there is the routers port forwarding.

-- Inside the network you need your own DNS server to solve the network addresses in the internal network. I do not think this is necessary more than for the internal network. If your not working with computers setting up a DNS server is like running in to a wall. Ask someone who knows.

Well, well.

As I said it took me a week to figure it out. Setting up a single island really work right out of the box. But when you get it going it is easy to ad more Sims.

Of course this is a working grid so most of the Sims are only up when someone is working on them. The grid address is https://hg.2worlds2go.eu:8002 But there are some restrictions because we have a terrible internet connection being all out in the Swedish landscape. You can see more on https://2worlds2go.eu. Sometimes the High Fidelity server is running on the sandbox and slow things down it is a Alfa you know.

To be honest I have not been around Second life much the last year. My 2worlds2go virtual company have been doing other stuff and I have a art and design company in RL that takes up my time.

I try to get inworld and check out some new place everyday but it is often only for fifteen minutes and then I have to do other stuff again. So today I decided to read and look at video and try to get updated on the world again.

So I went inworld to play some games and see if things have changed. After a few hours and stuck in a maze I think Second life is really well and will be around for a long time. More stable and a lot of new functions to build new experiences. I have done some driving and it is soon at the same level as it was when I first came to SL. Strange nothing can be done about this.

I have been testing a lot of new software the last months and I think I know why Second life will be around.

1: Content. There are some many talented creators and the new places are really good. When you see them thru the Oculus Rift you are amazed. No place have so much content as Second life. You can buy almost anything your avatar needs. No other world comes even close. Does Linden lab really think people will start all over again.

2: The tools are easy to use. Anybody can get in to creating. I was wrong about mesh. It looks great but make less people get in to virtual designs.

3: Standardization. You have a basic avatar that can be modified as you like. This makes it so much easier for content creators to do add-ons and clothes. Yes you can look like anything but people tend to look pretty much the same with a few personal alterations. If i buy a mesh avatar there will be others that look the same. We do not like that.

4: It is a world. You can walk on the continents. There are city's and beaches but it have the feel of a complete world. Yes you can fly, I think that’s overrated by the way, and teleport but the world is a place you understand. The most successful games and worlds looks close to RL. In WOW there is magic and monsters but the world is much like ours. It have also been around for a long time. Look at Active worlds, Blue Mars and Cloud party. Nice ideas but not worlds I want to spend a lot of time in.

5: People wants to have fun not be sys admins and run servers. This is why I think that Opensim and High fidelity got it wrong. I will pay to not run servers on my spare time I just want to go inworld and not care about the tech. There is money here.

If Linden lab is going to have any success with the new world they have to do some pretty amazing stuff. High Fidelity is far away from creating a world that is a contender. Opensim needs a central company to bind all the grids together. Unfortunately hypergrid is not enough.

No Second life is in good shape and that’s good news.