I’m often impressed by the things we discover in our club’s travels across the Hypergrid.

Opensim is a pioneering platform where everyone is building anew, and that pioneering spirit brings out an amazing level of creativity.

But on this particular tour, we discovered something that completely blew me away. We found a cityscape spanning 16 regions. A Tolkien-themed area called “Romenna,” created by a single artist named Nick Lassard.

A few years ago in Second Life, Nick created a build called “Osgiliath” that spanned 4 regions. He had to close that project due to financial reasons, but the generous folks at PMgrid offered to let him rebuild it for free on their grid. And they gave him 16 regions as his new canvas for what he now calls “Romenna.”

Our tour unfortunately had a very bumpy ride. The Hypergrid and Opensim were not behaving at the start of our meeting, and due to bandwidth/hardware limitations on PMgrid it was very hard for a large number of us to visit Romenna at the same time. Many of us (including myself) got bumped out and scattered across the Hypergrid.

So for this report I’ll forgo the usual chat transcript. I went back to visit Romenna on my own after things settled down. You can follow my footsteps by using the directions in the notecard at the end of this blog post.

I strongly encourage you to make this journey yourself. And I promise you will not be disappointed by what you find at the end.

For more information about the Hypergrid Adventurers Club and how you can attend our meetings, please see our homepage.  You can follow our club’s tweets at #HGAC, and feel free to join our ongoing conversations on the HGAC Google Group Mailing List.

I began my solo adventure on the region Pathlandia on jokaydiaGRID.

Well, I wasn’t completely alone. I had my trusty donkey.

I walked through an instant hypergate (aka “Blamgate”) on the region Pathlandia.

And I arrived on the region HG Gateway 1 on ReactionGrid.

And yes, my donkey decided to stay behind on Pathlandia.  He can be stubborn that way.

I then made a manual hypergrid jump to the region Art00 on PMgrid.

Not much to see here.  But this was just the Hypergrid arrival point for PMgrid.

My final destination was Romenna.  So I made a local teleport to the region Rom20.

I arrived on the docks of Romenna.

Before me sprawled a dense city covering 9 full regions, with surrounding forests and a small village covering an additional 7 regions.  The entire build was consistently themed and fit together like a picture perfect fantasy with many walkable streets and detailed buildings to explore.  I’ve visited many wonderful virtual cities over the years.  But this one took my breath away with its broad vista, realistic layout and artistic beauty.

Don’t take my word for it.  Just look at it.

Amazing, isn’t it?

What’s also amazing is the fact that PMgrid is run on very low grade hardware behind an ordinary domestic broadband connection.  The owners of PMgrid, Bob Wellman and Peetr Maynard, run it as a labor of love.  And they freely share space on their grid as a way to cultivate projects like Romenna.

Bob, Peetr and Nick, thank you for all your hard work.

If you’d like to find your way to Romenna, please follow the instructions in this notecard.

And see if you can find the hidden underground sewer system!

— Notecard of Itinerary and Details —-
Before doing any Hypergrid jumps, be sure you have set your Home location and have relogged since you set it.  If you don’t, Hypergrid jumps will not work.  This appears to be a bug.

Many people find the Imprudence viewer to be very good for using with both SL and other grids.  You can find it here: http://imprudenceviewer.org/

*** How to make Manual Hypergrid Jumps in 4 easy steps ***
1) Open your World Map.
2) In the text box next to the Search button, enter the Hypergrid Address.
3) Click the Search button and wait for the map to move to the jump region.
4) Click the Teleport button.

*** Our Starting Location ***
Hypergrid Address: 66.240.233.81:9001:pathlandia
Region Name: “Pathlandia”
Grid Location: jokaydiaGRID (Lower)
Grid Website: http://jokaydiagrid.com

************************

Hypergrid Jump #1
Hypergrid Address: hypergrid.reactiongrid.com:9009
Region Name: “HG Gateway 1”
Grid Location: ReactionGrid (Middle)
Grid Website: http://reactiongrid.com

We’ll be making this jump using one of the instant Hypergates on Pathlandia.  It’s the stone archway near the Tardis.   Just walk up to the archway and walk through it.  You will automatically make a Hypergrid jump to “HG Gateway 1.”

For more information on how these instant Hypergates work, see: https://becunningandfulloftricks.com/2010/10/29/the-metaphor-of-portals/

“HG Gateway 1” is a handy jump point in the “middle” of the Hypergrid.

Hypergrid Jump #2
Hypergrid Address: julpet.ath.cx:9020
Region Name: “Art00”
Grid Location: PMgrid (Middle)
Grid Website: http://sites.google.com/site/pmgridinfo/
We’ll make this jump the manual way (see above “How to make Manual Hypergrid Jumps in 4 easy steps.”)

Once we arrive at the region “Art00” we will make a local teleport to the region “Rom20.”

Our final destination is “Romenna,” a beautifully detailed city and countryside area comprised of 16 regions and built by Nick Lassard.  A few years back, Nick had a 4 sim area called “Osgiliath” in Second Life. Osgiliath was shut down due to financial reasons, but Nick decided to build it anew (and much bigger!) as “Romenna” in Opensim.

***
jokaydiaGRID has a Newbie Dome for folks to pick up freebies that can help them get started.  If you find any good freebies in your Hypergrid travels that you’d like to share, you can put them in the Newbie Dome.   There’s currently a lack of many good outfits and items for male avatars, so it would be great if we could find more items like that to share.
— End of Notecard —

Take care,
-John “Pathfinder” Lester