Tag Archives: HyperGate

A new Automated Hypergrid Directory with Great Potential

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UPDATE 4/12/2015 – Unfortunately, it looks like this directory system has now been shut down. But fortunately I’ve found an even better live hypergrid directory.  Check out OpensimWorld.

Mike Leopard, creator of the iDreamsNet Hypergrid List

Mike Leopard, creator of the iDreamsNet Hypergrid List

Two of my biggest challenges when exploring Hypergrid-connected regions across the multitude of Opensim-based grids have always been: 1) finding places where people are currently visiting and 2) not wasting time trying to connect to places that are offline.

And over the years, there have been commendable efforts to manually create lists of Hypergrid-connected places (e.g., Hyperica) as well as strong work to create networked inworld devices (e.g., TheHypergates).  All this work has been wonderful and very helpful to the growth of the Hypergrid.

However, I’ve always felt an ideal tool to really tie together the Hypergrid would be an automatically updated (i.e., # of current visitors and online status) and simple searchable web-based directory that was very easy to join.

Which is why I’m very excited by the new iDreamsNet Hypergrid List created by Mike Leopard.  He’s nailed all of those features right out of the gate.

There aren’t many regions listed right now since the system is brand new and opt-in, but it’s incredibly easy to join and therefore could grow very quickly.  To get your own Hypergrid-connected region included in the list, you just rez an object on your region which phones home to the iDreamsNet website and immediately creates an entry for your region on the Hypergrid List.  You are given a special link where you can go edit your listing (add photo, descriptive text, tags, website) and, over time, this object communicates back to the iDreamsNet website to let it know if your region is currently online and how many people are currently on it.  More details can be found on the iDreamsNet website.

My entry for Pathlandia. You can see I was logged in by myself when this was taken. ;)

My entry for Pathlandia. You can see I was logged in by myself when this was taken. 😉

With the recent elimination of the 4096 region distance bug, there’s no need anymore to complicate Hypergrid directories with grid coordinates or “upper, middle, lower” categories.  Now, anyone can jump from any Hypergrid location to any other Hypergrid location.  We just need a simple, automated and powerful directory.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how this new service evolves, and I love the clean Google-esque design of it.  Simple, automated and powerful.  Great work so far, Mike!

Take care,
-John “Pathfinder” Lester

Hypergrid Adventurers Club – Visiting the Center for Global Health’s East Africa Traveler Safety Simulation

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hgac 9 28 2013 04

Wandering warthogs in the East Africa Traveler Safety Simulation

Yesterday, the Hypergrid Adventurers Club (HGAC) visited the Center for Global Health’s East Africa Traveler Safety Simulation.   About 20 of us made the voyage, initially gathering at JokaydiaGrid and then travelling together as a group.  This was the first HGAC trip in a long time, and it was wonderful to see so many familiar friends as well as some brand new faces.

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OpenSimulator Community Conference 2013 – My Presentation and My Thanks to Everyone Involved

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Attending the Opening Keynote Presentation

Attending the Opening Keynote Presentation

This past weekend I attended and spoke at the very first OpenSimulator Community Conference (OSCC13).  It was an amazing event full of outstanding presentations, great networking opportunities, and spectacular venues with tons of attendees.  It was also truly remarkable to see how far OpenSim has evolved and matured as a virtual world platform.

I’ve seen my fair share of online conferences, and this was the most professionally managed and engaging online conference I have ever attended.  To everyone involved in making this event a reality, thank you! 

And thank you all who attended my presentation.  I apologize for not having time to answer all your questions, but if you leave a comment on this blog post I will be very happy to reply.

Lastly, for those of you interested in me possibly restarting the Hypergrid Adventurers Club tours (I got a lot of positive feedback at the conference), be sure to join the HGAC mailing list and post that you’d like to attend a future tour.  If I see enough interest, I’ll definitely start them up again.

Please read on for my own presentation summary, video and downloadable slides.  You can also watch recordings of all the other presentations in the Conference Archives.

“Exploring the Interconnected: How Past Dreams evolve into Future Reality”

Join us to hear more about how dreams from the past can dramatically change and evolve into something completely new. In this presentation you will hear all about John’s initial experiences in Opensim while still working at Linden Lab, the creation and mangement of “Pathlandia,” initial explorations of the Hypergrid, and how it all fits in with what he remembers as Linden Lab’s original vision of an expanding Metaverse of self-hosted and interconnected virtual worlds.

ADDENDUM 9/10/2013: Be sure to read this blog post: “The Future of Conferences.” It’s an outstanding summary of the conference by Crista Lopes, the inventor of the Hypergrid and one of the conference’s main organizers.

Take care,
-John “Pathfinder” Lester

“We were here” – Discovering Footsteps in the Wilderness and Flags across the Hypergrid

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I started the Hypergrid Adventurers Club because I think the development of Hypergrid-enabled interconnectivity between Opensim grids is a beautiful and fascinating evolution.  And in my experience, if you want to help cultivate growth and innovative uses of a new technology, it’s a good idea to do whatever you can to build a supportive community around it.

Recently I noticed a very interesting phenomenon across the Hypergrid.  On regions in areas that allow visitors to build or rez objects, some people are planting flags.

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Hypergrid Adventurers Club visits OSGrid home of LindaKelllie.com – Jan 19 2012

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Today, the Hypergrid Adventurers Club took a trip from jokaydiaGRID to the OSGrid home of Linda Kelllie, a talented content creator who gives away a wide range of excellent items (including OAR files of entire regions) on her website LindaKellie.com.

Read on for a summary, some pics, and instructions on how you can make the journey yourself.

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Hypergrid Adventurers Club visits Dune-inspired science fiction world – January 10 2012

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The Hypergrid Adventurers Club took a trip from jokaydiaGRID to OSGrid, where we visited an amazing Dune-inspired Sci-Fi area created by Lani Global Systems.

Read on for a summary, some pics, and instructions on how you can make the journey yourself.  Be sure to mind the sandworms.

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My Opensim Grid “Pathlandia”

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More pics of Pathlandia

Multiuser virtual worlds are a passion of mine, and I continue to research and explore their use as platforms for building communities around creative expression, immersive education and interpersonal support. I also do consulting and contracting work using the Opensimulator virtual world platform, so please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need guidance.

To help with my exploration of interconnected multiuser virtual worlds, I’ve been running my own Hypergrid-enabled Opensimulator grid running out of my home since 2012.

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Hypergrid Adventurers Club visits OSGrid – January 5 2012

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To celebrate the reboot of the Hypergrid Adventurers Club, we took a trip from jokaydiaGRID to OSGrid.

It was a very successful journey, and I hope everyone had a good time.  Read on for a summary, some pics, and instructions on how you can make the journey yourself.

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Report: The Hypergrid Adventurers Club tests ReactionGrid’s Opensim 0.7.2 Alpha Grid

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Today, the Hypergrid Adventurers Club tested ReactionGrid’s Opensim 0.7.2 Alpha Grid.  It was quite an adventure, spanning 4 different Opensim grids running 4 different versions of Opensim.

We gathered on the region HGBridge on ReactionGrid’s 0.7.2 Alpha Test Grid, and from there we began a series of Hypergrid jumps.

About 10 of us joined in on the Adventure.  Here’s where we went if you’d like to follow in our footsteps:

1) START: ReactionGrid Alpha Test Grid
HG Coordinates: secondlife://alpha.reactiongrid.net:8002:HGBridge/139/156/22
Grid Location: (4000,4000)
Grid Software: OpenSim 0.7.2 ReactionGrid.

2) NewWorldGrid
HG Coordinates: secondlife://grid.newworldgrid.com:8002:BioZone/
Grid Location: (6991,6995)
Grid Software: OpenSim 0.7.1.1 Release

3) GermanGrid
HG Coordinates: secondlife://login.germangrid.de:8002/
Grid Location: (8000,8000)
Grid Software: OpenSim 0.7.2 Dev

4) END: FleepGrid
HG Coordinates: secondlife://fleepgrid.com:8002/
Grid Location: (9013,9013)
Grid Software: OpenSim 0.7.2 RC2

I chose these locations because they represented 4 different versions of Opensim which, theoretically, are all Hypergrid-compatible with each other.  It’s always good to test theory by putting it into practice.  Some folks initially had difficulty logging in to our Alpha Grid.  This caused some chat and movement lag/freezing.  But despite this initial glitch, the region and grid recovered all on its own.  Then we were able to start jumping.

Starting out on the region HGBridge in ReactionGrid's Alpha Grid

A few of us made it to GermanGrid when it suddenly stopped accepting connections.  This might have been caused by a region crash due to the load of our visit.  Our apologies to the GermanGrid admins if we caused any problems.

Those of us who couldn’t make it to GermanGrid simply hopped from NewWorldGrid to FleepGrid, since both grids are within the 4096 region limit for Hypergrid jumps.

We arrive in FleepGrid

Fleep Tuque, the owner of FleepGrid, joined us on our Adventure.  She welcomed us all when we all finally arrived on her grid, and grid performance was excellent.

Chris Hart, ReactionGrid’s CTO, attended the test.  Here’s what she had to say about the event.

“Overall the event was pretty successful. While we had some issues with teleports between regions, the server stayed up and running for the whole time. We had a wide variety of clients logging in to the grid at the same time which seemed to cause a few lockups, but after a little perseverence most made it inworld and were able to HyperGrid teleport out successfully. Those that had difficulty logging in, and even those that didn’t, we welcome feedback on your experiences, please let us know which clients you were using to connect and whether you were logging in locally or were visiting from another grid.”

As always, the best way to give us feedback is to submit a ticket on our Metaverseheroes support site.  If you were part of our adventure today, please let us know all the details about any glitches you experienced.  We want to make sure ReactionGrid’s version of Opensim 0.7.2 is as stable as possible before we officially release it.

This upgrade to Opensim 0.7.2 will be a big step with many new features and additional stability.  And once it is finalized, ReactionGrid will be part of a much bigger universe of Opensim grids interconnected by the Hypergrid.

Thank you all again for helping test things out today.  I hope you had a fun time, too.

Take care,
-John “Pathfinder” Lester

Special Hypergrid Adventurers Club Meeting – Jumping from ReactionGrid’s 0.7.2 Alpha Test Grid

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I’m very excited to announce that we are in the final testing stages of ReactionGrid’s 0.7.2 Opensim update.

And to celebrate, we’ll be having a SPECIAL Hypergrid Adventurers Club meeting tomorrow!

WHEN: Tomorrow, Wednesday, Sept 28 @ 10am Eastern Time (EDT).  That’s 14:00 GMT/UTC.

WHERE: The region HGBridge on ReactionGrid’s 0.7.2 Alpha Test Grid.

HOW: You can create an account on the Test Grid and log in by following the instructions on our blog.

After we all gather on the region HGBridge, we’ll try jumping to GermanGrid, NewWorldGrid and perhaps a few other places compatible with 0.7.2.

Hope to see you there!

Take care,
-John “Pathfinder” Lester