This weekend will see InWorldz move to a new hosting service. The move, after months of planning, was announced at the start of the month, and should take place over Friday 15th / Saturday 17th November, 2012.

Announcing the move, Beth Reischl (known as Elenia Llewellyn in-world), one on the InWorldz LLC co-founders, said:

As an international company, who deals with 1/3 of our customers being outside of the US, it has long been apparent to us that it can be very difficult for our global customers to connect and enjoy their time here. While we have striven to help each one that has had issues, we also realized a need to be able to scale our services globally for our residents. While scaling services globally is important, so too is our bottomline costs, and keeping those in line with what we expect our residents to pay for. We have always strove for keeping our costs down, so that we can pass that on to our residents. Combining these two pieces of information, along with the amount of asset storage we hold, we felt it was the right time to look for a company that could provide us with a long term roadmap that would benefit our global customers, keep our costs down, and do this at a time where our migration process wouldn’t be harmful to our residents.

As a result, InWorldz will be relocating to RackSpace, where their servers will initially be located at that company’s facilities in Elk Ridge, Illinois. However, an important factor in the move is that it will enable InWolrdz to expand their servers into target areas such as the UK, Hong Kong and Australia.

This move also brings to an end InWorldz relationship with CariNet, their current hosting provider, with who they announced a joint venture back in July 2011, and reflects the founder’s commitment to growing their business and their community.

The shutdown is scheduled to commence at 03:00 PST / IWT on the 16th November and, assuming all goes according to plan, re-opening at 03:00 PST / IWT on Saturday 17th November.

PhysX Deployment

Alongside the expansion notice, Reischl confirmed that InWorldz will undertake deployment of their nVidia / GeForce PhysX physics engine implementation across their entire grid as a part of the migration. PhysX has been under development for InWorlz for some time, and recent deployment saw it added to water regions in the InWorldz grid to enable some final testing and bug-fixing to take place, and well as allowing users to try the new engine out without impacting the entire grid.

Both of these moves should substantially increase both the appeal of InWorldz and its ability to manage growth in the coming years. Possibly in recognition of this, InWorldz LLC has contracted Pooky Media to develop machinimia films which will form the backbone of the company’s marketing  and promotion activities commencing in 2013.

With thanks to Hypergrid Business.

Running throughout September, the Inworldz Homes and Residences exhibition covers four sims within InWorldz and provides some 42 exhibits to explore on foot or in the air. The exhibition offers InWorldz residents the chance to take a look as homes, pools, garden items and furniture  from some of the grid’s top creators.

The setting is somewhat rural in styling, with exhibitor plots neatly laid out in plenty of greenery, while the central area where the four sims meet incorporates a grid system of roads and foot paths.

Each exhibition plot has a large sign out front for displaying the creator’s logo / image, and which includes a giver for both the creator’s notecard and a landmark to their main store / sim.

You can wander around the sims, or fly on your own or – in a marvellously refined option – take a hot air balloon around each of the sims, with up to three fellow passengers. The balloons can be flown, rather than running on a scripted route, with PAGE UP / DOWN controlling height, and the ARROW keys controlling direction. You can even get a glass of champers to enjoy during your flight. When you’re done, simply STAND UP and the balloon with auto-return to its start-point, leaving you free to roam on foot.

There is a slight caveat to taking a balloon, however, Currently, InWorldz doesn’t support scripted objects crossing sim boundaries Twhich might or might not still apply when you visit. During my preview visit (September 1st,) the balloons were scripted to stop at sim boundaries. An explanatory notecard stated this was to do with issues with scripted objects crossing sim boundaries. As you can see from the comments at the end of this piece, this is apparently no longer the case, but the balloons within the exhibition sims had not be updated with revised scripts, etc. Hopefully, this will be corrected now it has been noted.

There are a few “special” landmarks to visit as well, including a live events stage and dance area, and the Bates Motel of Psycho fame (once a common find within Second Life many years ago, and thus something of a memory-jogger).

Sim crossing may be an issue with scripted objects, but they don’t present any problem when on foot. InWorldz has some of the smoothest sim crossings I’ve encountered, and this was certainly true wandering around the exhibition.

The exhibits themselves demonstrate a range of styles and approaches, from “traditional”  house designs through to the more esoteric – tree houses, etc., – and the futuristic.

Overall the exhibition presents a good opportunity for InWorldz content creators to showcase their wares, and for residents to take a look at what is on offer and gain landmarks to stores to check-out more. The balloon rides are a pleasant experience, and there are some well thought-out plots in the sims that encourage exploration.

Why not take time out and go see for yourself?

Sim Landmarks

• InWorldz Events A
• InWorldz Events B
• InWorldz Events C
• Inworldz Events D

InWorldz LLC, operators of the fast-growing InWorldz grid have today announced a significant joint venture with CariNet Inc. a quality-oriented service provider in the USA, to build a redundant 3D virtual world grid.

The Press Release from InWorldz reads in full:

InWorldz, LLC and CariNet Inc. To Power Virtual World Technology and Hosting Through Joint Venture

Venture to focus on quality of service, scalability, and core software to
promote growth and technical innovation

NY and SAN DIEGO, CA , July 30, 2011 – InWorldz, LLC a leading provider of virtual world services and CariNet Inc. a quality-oriented provider of dedicated servers, server clusters, and cloud computing announce plans to form a joint venture to build a redundant 3D virtual world grid capable of high performance and fast growth.

The venture builds around the original vision of the InWorldz founders. Known to their customers mainly by their pseudonyms, Elenia Llewellyn (real name Beth Reischl), Legion Hienrichs (real name John Arnolde), and Tranquillity Dexler (real name David Daeschler) have supported the continuing vision that everyone should be able to experience virtual world technologies and services in a way that enhances their lives and their own vision. Since it’s inception in February of 2009, InWorldz, LLC has listened to customer feedback and demand to provide it’s residents with the software, hardware, and tools they need to create dramatic simulations ranging from vast and mystical oceans, to artistic  depictions of real world cities. Building on a strong customer community and a solid technical background, the InWorldz grid has grown to over 800 customer owned regions on word of mouth alone.

CariNet Inc. has been a hosting leader since 1997, offering a wide variety of hosting options including dedicated servers, server clusters, public and private cloud offerings as well as server virtualization hypervisors. CariNet Inc. builds, owns and operates all of their datacenters and are capable of handling customers and demands of any size. CariNet Inc. currently services 7500+ customers around the globe.

CariNet Inc. provides a strong background and expertise in all things hosting. The CariNet team consists of a dedicated group of individuals willing to go the extra mile to make sure they have a quality product their customers can rely on. From power, to network, to hardware and software, CariNet Inc. has created a strong backbone for any business to tether their dreams to and let them run.

Enablement is the shared theme that has brought CariNet Inc. and InWorldz, LLC together. The joint venture will provide InWorldz with access to the latest in hardware and software technology available to support efficiency and scalability. Powered by this venture, InWorldz will have access to systems and expertise that will increase the effectiveness of their business processes, free up development resources, and increase profitability. The joint venture will provide both companies with the opportunity to continue to explore the growing virtual world market and provide the services and support that enable the individual as well as organizations who will use virtual world technologies in the future.

For further information contact:

Beth Reischl: Tel. (630) 504-8449; Email: press@inworldz.com

There has been much said about InWorldz of late – and the camps seem to be sharply divided as to how “good” it is, so I decided it was high time I popped back (after an absence of some eight months) to take a look at things myself.

When I first reviewed InWorldz, my impressions were generally favourable – the place was just beginning to find its feet, and while it had some rough edges, the potential was there. So, what has happened since that time?

Well, rather a lot, and most of it for the good. User numbers have been growing steadily (Total user count approaching 40K, almost 900 regions online), and a growing number of SL merchants offer their wares in IW as well – of which, more anon – and an active social scene. Those running the grid have now formed a Limited Liability Company in the US – somewhat similar to a Company Limited by Guarantee in the UK – and as such, have revealed their personal details (the LLC itself has a correspondence address in Brooklyn, NY) and address is also given for DCMA issues as well. If nothing else, this should stop those who have in the past, taken pot shots at InWorldz – and OpenSim grids in general – for their “lack of accountability”.

Beyond this, the web site itself remains little changed from the last time I looked, although the range of available Viewers has increased: IW now “officially” recognises Imprudence, and also now has an SSE2-optimised version of their own viewer. Actually, the website is something that needs work; as it stands, it’s pretty unenticing, and doesn’t do IW itself justice in inviting people to come in and have a look around.

For the purposes of this review, I downloaded the latest SSE2-capable version of the IW Viewer and initially used that. For the record, the system configuration I used for this review comprises: Intel Q6600 quad-core processor, 2.4Ghz / 3Gb RAM; Window 7 with SP-1 installed; Ge9800GT GPU with 1 GB RAM supporting OpenGL 3.3 & the most recent nVidia drivers; InWorldz Viewer 1.2.7 (May 15th) or Imprudence 1.3.2; Phoenix .1102 (where specified).

Logging-in

Logging-in brought me to the familiar InWorldz Coffee Station, which is the default log-in for those new to IW or who haven’t set a home position, etc. Last year, this was subject to “heavy” (for IW at the time!) traffic, and had both masses of lag and people falling over themselves to provide assistance.

This time, the sim rezzed smoothly and at a speed comparable to SL and lag was non-existent; however, even with only five people present on the sim, I exhibited a familiar movement problem: rather than animating while walking, my avatar would simply “glide”, pose unchanged – something I frequently encountered back last year, when I was using a lower specification graphics card. This was to mark my movement wherever I went.

The first thing I did on getting logged-in was update my appearance to match my SL looks as closely as possible. As I was, until recently, using my own custom skin and am still using my own shape, this was relatively simple – just upload the skin textures (free of charge in IW), apply them via the appearance Editor & then tweak my shape and change hair colour. The results were pleasing, although I need a decent eyebrow shaper in IW to tweak the look a little more.

Search was very much lacking in IW the last time I was there – not so any more. It’s now available, if buggy, and those who remember the “old” (pre-google-ising) SL Search will feel right at home (right down to the keyword gaming that was such an issue in SL!).  Indeed, so much of the InWorldz Viewer harkens back to what was in SL several years ago, that using it is something of a pleasant trip down memory lane. That said, I’d avoid the Web Search option in Imprudence.

Phox-y Scripting

Like OSG before it, IW has forked somewhat from the “full” OS Grid standard; I understand the inventory system is being overhauled and they’ve recently introduced their own scripting language – Phox. Now, this gave me cause for concern as last year, I spent a fair amount of time working on various builds as I tried out IW, and most of these ended up scripted using LSL – so I was concerned that I’d have to go re-learn everything in order to re-do everything. However, a quick hop to a sandbox showed my fears were – so far at least! – unjustified. My rezzers worked and all the doors, lighting and other elements worked just fine. The only minor irritant I found was the repeated appearance of a line of object chat “play sound script: 45.000000”, which I couldn’t trace down.

I’ve yet to try out Phox in anger, so cannot give an honest comparison – expect that at some point in the future, perhaps.

Appearances, Shopping and Content

The general “look” of IW has come a long way as well; Windlight is enabled, allowing for eater reflections, etc., to be seen, sculpties are now very prevalent, sim extenders are commonly in use (although rather surprisingly, none of the ones I noted were set to phantom, as with SL, but they didn’t appear to create any issues with sim performance. Could this be due to the lack of any physics engine within IW at present?). Indeed, land in any developed sim in IW and allow it ro rez, and you’d be hard-pressed to tell it apart from anything similar in SL.

The choice of shopping in IW has – due to the aforementioned influx of SL creators – dramatically increased in terms of quality and quantity. Prices in IW appear somewhat equitable to those found in SL; I visited a number of clothing stores and found prices ranging from Iz250 through to Iz600; however, given you get around twice the number of I’z that you do L$, then IW is considerably lower-cost than SL. In may respects, this is to be expected: land prices within IW remain markedly lower than SL.

Money brings me to my first gripe: currently, IW uses PayPal as the “official” mechanism for buying currency. This hurts on two counts: the additional transaction fees thrown in by PayPal themselves, plus the fact that I only have one credit card, and that is assigned to a PayPal account I *cannot* use for making personal purchases. While there is an alternative means of obtaining currency – via in-world ATMs linked to their counterparts in SL, so you can transfer L$ and Iz in either direction, it would be beneficial if a further mechanism could be provided by which those unable to use PayPal and who may not be involved in SL could obtain currency.

Content-wise, IW has the familiar PG, Mature and Adult ratings assigned to it – but in a much more logical and  user-friendly way (Rodvik, please take note!). Mainland is restricted to PG content only, with private sims available for rating as PG, Mature or Adult, according to the owner’s preference. While this does mean those wanting to run Adult-related activities are restricted to purchasing private island sims, this is not as hard as it may appear, again due to the cost of land.

Land Costs

Sims come in a variety of formats; Mainland sims are limited to 30,000 prims (twice that of SL sims), with pricing set at $60 USD a month tier, and an initial set-up fee of $60 USD. Private island sims come with prim options from 35,000-45,000, with tier set at $75 USD a month and an initial $75 USD set-up fee.

It should be noted that these prices are somewhat “introductory”, and will increase (tier at least), when IW officially goes “live”. However, those taking sims now will have their tier grandfathered at these rates for 12 months following IW going “live”.

There are other much-touted advantages to IW and grids like it beyond the prim count that sims are given: prims can be edited to a size of (on average) 128x128x128, and can be shrunk down to the size of nanoprims without the need for editing tricks as well as supporting a hollowed-out rate of 99%. While there are undoubtedly good, there are still limitations on linking prim sets (though not as restrictive as SL), and assuming LL take linksets into account when mesh is rolled out, it is probable that in terms of resizing prims, SL will be able to match IW and elsewhere for the majority of building tasks.

Show Me the Seccs!

SL has – unfairly in many respects – a “seedy” reputation. While “adult” activities do go on (just like in real life), they are hardly “in your face” as many a tabloid journo would have us believe. Truth is, if you want to find them, you have to make something of an effort and go find them.

Truth further be told, I actually see nothing wrong with much that does pertain to “adult” activities in SL; a lot of them can be downright fun. This being the case, it’s good to see the IW founders being as open-minded towards things “adult” as Linden Lab once was. As mentioned above, there is a sensible rating system (although admittedly no age verification process at this time). Given IW is a place for the over-18s, it should allow for the widest mix of activities.

However, I was genuinely surprised to find RLV in operation on the grid; I was totally oblivious to the fact it had been ported, only that there were rumours of people attempting to port it to “other grids”. It’s only available through those Viewers with RLV/a  implemented (such as Imprudence). Suitably themed sims are already popping up, and I noted a couple of (in)famous fetish/BDSM Groups from SL are apparently active over on IW as well.

As an RLV user, I’m pleased to see it in use elsewhere, although I’m curious as to how it will be maintained over time; presumably someone is keeping an eye on Marine’s Kelley’s development of the code – and has had the courtesy of letting her know they’re porting it elsewhere (or if it is RLV/a, letting Kitty know, if she’s not responsible herself).

Stability, Physics and Other Matters

There has been much written on IW stability and general usability, with many reporting they have issues – particularly in the areas of rezzing and crashing.

While these things are highly subjective, I can only report that I leapt around over a dozen sims in my visit; I rezzed and de-rezzed items, I slid through stores, Tp’d hither and thither – and encountered few rezzing issues. Those I *did* encounter all occurred when on Mainland and when flying across sim boundaries; on several occasions things in the sim I was entering would not rez until after I’d Tp’d somewhere in-sim. This was a little disconcerting, as I’d find myself seeing furniture and plants hanging in the air just before I’d hit a wall that wasn’t there…

Viewers-wise the IW and Imprudence Viewers operated admirably well: Imprudence shoving out an average frame-rate of 30fps on sims with others around, and up to 40 on sims where I was alone. The IW Viewer banged things out for me at just *very* slightly lower rates: around 36fps when on my own, and around 25fps on sims with others. Phoenix did not fair quite as well; the frame rates were appreciably lower (22pfs when on my own, 16fps when on a sim with 1-4 others). I also routinely found I needed to force a rebake after Tps in Phoenix in order to properly rez to myself. Logging-out from Phoenix was less than elegant, as it tended to think I was connected to SL, and have been forced to log out, generating the message about viewing chat  / IMs or quitting.

One slight issue I did have when working with the various Viewers is that my inventory views didn’t always sync. I first noticed this when creating an Alpha Layer (of which, more below). I used Imprudence to create the layer, but when I re-logged to the IW Viewer, the Alpha didn’t initially show-up – I had to relog. The same issue occurred when creating a Tattoo layer in Phoenix – when I first logged back to the IW Viewer, the tattoo icon was a no-show in my inventory.

And yes, IW does support both Alpha and Tattoo layers. What it doesn’t currently support, however, is multi-attach or multi-layer clothing wear or the new SL Avatar Physics. Doubtless these will come in time, but this is still a Beta grid, so no complaints on these being absent, please!

It is true that IW lacks a physics engine (ODE doesn’t appear to be implemented, and while nVidia PhysX has been promised, it has yet to be delivered), and this is currently limiting – no cars or other modes of transport, including elevators. While not an absolute killer, there are many who do like their vehicles and things, and until physics arrives at IW, it will put people off. That said, I did encounter some odd physics-like behaviour around the grid that was similar to SL pushing. A few times when flying between locations, I’d land at a store and immediately get pushed back to the parcel boundary; if I walked across the boundary, I’d be OK, but flying would see me pushed gently back to the boundary upon landing (this was not any form of rubber-banding).

The Search bugs are a nuisance: items listed in the left-side “results list” don’t always yield information in the right-side “details” pane; annoying when trying to find something like land or go shopping, when all you get is “Land Type: (unknown)” and a blank field for the location.

But these were for me, all niggles. I don’t drive, I rarely fly with anything needing wings in-world, and while I’d like to get my elevator scripts working, that all can wait. Other upsets in IW I can deal with; over the course of a day-and-a-half I found them to be no better or worse than the tribulations I routinely face in SL.

General Impressions

IW is maturing steadily. When I was last there, crashes were frequent to the point of being able to tell the time by them every 1/4-hour or so. Today, nary a crash for me. Teleports all worked fine (although around 1/4 of the LMs I’d collected last year were now invalid, suggesting that either people have moved around, or there has been something of a mild attrition rate within IW.

There is still clearly a lot of work to be put in on it before it is ready for prime time, to be sure – but the creators and their team are aware of this. The population also may be on the low side (in terms of concurrency at any given time) – but a) it is one the rise; and b) those involved in IW are some of the friendliest people on Twitter, where there is always plenty of chatter about events and the like going on in-world at IW.

It is hard to say how well IW will do compared to other grid-based VWs. Certainly, at this point it does not represent real competition to SL; rather, Avination and other OS Grids are more properly its competitors. As such, perhaps the biggest problem it faces (as does Avination and others) is how to reach out to enough users to achieve some form of critical mass; SL itself is a relatively small pond for them all to fish from, and not an easy one to gain a decent catch from at that.

Right now, the bias of use type in IW seems tipped towards content creators rather than consumers. While land costs are very favourable, there is a need to balance this out; low tier won’t matter a hoot if the traffic flow of customers doesn’t offset the cost in being in IW.

And to be sure, persuading people away from SL is no sinecure. When all is said and done, SL is established, both in terms of the platform and it warts and, more importantly, the amount of investment users have made in it over the years – not just content creators, but those consumers who have thousands of items representing hundreds of dollars of expenditure sitting in their inventory. Anyone trying to encourage these people to split their time between two ostensibly similar worlds is going to have their work cut out, plain and simple.

This is not to say IW and grids like it cannot survive. Many are attracted to them because they represent something that has been lost from SL: the frontier spirit, so to speak, and the feeling of community and being in something together. And while enticing people away from SL may not be easy, it is not inconceivable that Linden Lab themselves might spark – unintentionally or otherwise – a mass exodus from SL that could massively help the likes of IW. Let’s be honest; when it comes to user engagement the Lab does show a remarkable ability to aim a loaded handgun and aim it at their own pedal extremities before divesting themselves of a toe or two on squeezing the trigger.

Right now, IW is, alongside of Avination and (perhaps) OSG, the place to watch when it comes to OpenSim-based grids. They seem to have the leap on others, and are exhibiting a stability to make them very viable propositions. Certainly, the care being exhibited in the development speaks volumes; it would have been easy to rush to market with a “final” product (as others have tried). Taking a step-by-step approach and not being harried by dates on a calendar (which LL seemed to be half the time), the creators of InWorldz are demonstrating they are building something then intend to see last.

I know that now I’ve been back for the first time in eight months or so, what I’ve seen has whetted my appetite once more, so hopefully, I’ll be popping back there more regularly in future.

Some Recommendations

Before entering InWorldz (or returning to have a look if you’ve not been there in a while), some personal recommendations (not necessarily endorsed by the folks at IW):

• If you have an older version of the IW viewer, de-install it / remove it from your computer and install the latest version
• If you are using Imprudence or other Viewer to access IW, don’t overload your Viewer’s bandwidth settings – it can actually be a mistake to set your bandwidth too high; both LL and the likes of Phoenix provide information on why bigger bandwidth settings are not necessarily better; if you experience issues with IW, try dropping your bandwidth down to around the stated 1.5Mbps
• If you are using Phoenix, consider swapping to either Imprudence or the IW Viewer – Phoenix looks like it might be a little more unpredictable.

Further Reading

• I goze InWorldz – a first look at InWorldz
• A look at Avination
• Avination explodes – Hypergrid Business News, February 2011
• Second Life vs. OpenSim – Hypergrid Business News, May 2011

From time-to-time I’ve paddled around other Grid environments: OpenLifeGrid, New World Grid, InWorldz, etc. I’ve commented on OpenLifeGrid in the past (although I’ve not been back there in about 6 months), and I’ve also poked my nose into Blue Mars. As there has been a lot of commentary on InWorldz of late, and seeing as I’ve been bouncing around the InWorldz grid for some three months now, I’d thought I inflict, er, offer my observations on it.

First off, like any OpenSim Grid, Inworldz (IW) is small. Sims can be measured in the dozens rather than the thousands. The server-side software is also quite a way behind SL in terms of functionality. So don’t expect lots of windlight enhancements and be prepared for frequent server restarts. On the positive side, InWorldz has a working currency and working permissions.

Accessing InWorldz is much like SL…go to the website and register (no charge). The form itself is straightforward, and on completing the registration process, a validation e-mail is sent to you. Follow the instructions in the e-mail, and once validated, you’re ready to log-in.

Viewer-wise, there is a reasonable choice across operating systems, including InWorldz own tailored Viewer, Imprudence and Hippo. My personal preference is to use Imprudence, as I sometimes use this with SL and it has been tuned for OS Grid use; although I’ve played with the InWorldz Viewer and found it acceptable, and I’ve used Hippo with other OS grids. Results with other Viewers tend to be mixed. The infamous Emerald can be used, although I’ve tended to find it exceptionally slow on rezzing, and subject to frequent disconnects / crashes. Meerkat, from which elements of Emerald are drawn, on the other hand runs pretty smoothly on IW, and tends to be my 2nd choice of Viewer, if only because I used it to export the majority of my bits from SL prior to the TPV “lock down” at the end of April, and it is always wise to use the same Viewer to import items as was used to export them.

Whichever Viewer you use (outside of InWorldz’ own) will need to be configured to access the grid – but the instructions on the website for configuring Hippo can be used with other Viewers readily enough.

Logging-in to IW is obviously identical to SL, and will initially drop you at the main public meeting point. This generally has people coming and going and frequently has IW Mentors around. There is also a large freebie store where hair, clothes, shapes, skins, shoes, etc., can be picked up to get you started. The store also has a series of landmark sets, kindly ordered and sorted by category (“Skins and tattoos”, “clothing”, “rentals”, etc), by Pat Nartobi, one of the IW Mentors and good friend. These sets are a must have, as they are a boon to getting around IW and appreciating – despite negativity voiced within the SL official forum and places like SLU – just how IW is growing.

I’m not going to go on about getting around in IW or places to see; the former is easy enough for anyone who has been in SL and the latter is a matter of discovery. Rather, here’s a few bullet points of items of interest:

• As one would expect from an OS Grid, IW isn’t subject to many of the limitations one finds in SL:
  • Full sims support up to 45,000 prims
  • Prim sizing through the Build tools isn’t constrained to the 10x10x10 limit or torturing mega prims, with the largest permissable prim size being 128x128x128
• Land costs are (currently) considerably cheaper than SL: with mainland sims costing $60 a month, with no set-up fee and private islands costing $75 and no set-up fee
• Purchasing (renting) land is currently handled through the website. Sims that are available are supposed to show up in the website World Map with a “For Sale” sign in the po-up information display. TBH, this is something I’ve not managed to do with either Firefox or Google Chrome…so I’m likely doing something wrong…
• Frame rates within IW are potentially as good as anything in SL, although there is no real windlight processing to be done
• There permissions system works as here as for SL (unsurprisingly), although can be a little temperamental at times – if you set the permissions on and object and continue to work on it or modify it, it may get switched to full permissions as a whole if a full perm object is added to it
• There are currently no charges associated with uploads / imports, and XML imports are generally very smooth
• Like other OS Grids, IW does not support the most use-to-date LSL commands and functions, so some scripts may need to be re-worked to operate on the grid. Some additional capabilities (prim lighting options, for example) are also more restricted than SL
• The in-world currency, (I’z or O$, depending on whether you are on the website or in-world) are currently half the value of L$ (500Iz to the US dollar). Currently, the only method of purchasing Iz is via the IW website and Paypal. Goods appear to be priced roughly at their SL equivalents, however (so, for example, an L$800 AO in SL is likely to be O$800 in IW). I should point out you get 50 Iz when you sign-up
• Much work has been done to improve the IW Asset database, although in places like public sandboxes, things can be a little unstable – it is not uncommon to get disconnected from the server when saving complex builds
• If you are using a Viewer such as Imprudence, many of the “advanced” features may or may not work; the Avatar List, for example, does not work in Imprudence, but has worked (for me) when running Meerkat.

Beyond this, there are the expected bugs and issues – this is OpenSim, so don’t expect everything to run like clockwork, but on the whole, InWorldz offers one of the better (and increasingly more popular) OS Grid implementations. The permissions system, relatively stable currency and sheer friendliness of the team (and mentors) behind it make it one of the more delightful places to visit – and one of the more occupied of OS Grids.

Of course, there are risks associated with any OS Grid involvement. For all its faults, SL is supported by a company that is hardly likely to go *poof* in the night. And with the best will in the world, OS Grids run by enthusiasts, however well-intentioned, don’t have this safeguard. IW suffers to no greater or lesser extent in this than any other OS Grid. However, what it would benefit from is a clearer indication of its foundations (are those behind it purely enthusiasts? is there a registered entity behind it? These questions are not easily answered from a perusal of the website, which is largely anonymous in this regard. While this shouldn’t be a major hindrance to IW’s initial growth, it may well become so if the grid expands and becomes mainstream (although in fairness those behind it probably have this in hand). For the time being, it remains something those with a passion for disliking OS Grids to take pot-shots at IW….

For my part, I enjoy my time there; I’m not sure if I’m going to take the plunge and set-up shop or anything, but it is interesting being back on the ground floor of sorts and re-learning things like very basic scripting (not that I’m an expert). Given the open attitude towards adult matters within IW, it’ll be interesting to see whether or not elements such as RLV support can be made to work on the Grid. Certainly, there is enough there to keep me hopping back and forth.

Certainly, if you are thinking of mooching around other grids, IW is a very good place to start.