Today I’ve done a visit to one of the biggest, walled gardens alternative grids based on Opensimulator backed up by a corporation in the back ground named „Avination.“ Registration went flawless, logged in with Imprudence, all seems to be working well or at least well enough at first glance.
No unexpected behaviour, user concurrency seems at peaks around 200, around 1.000 regions are at the grid there and there’s the usual stuff around: brands we all know from over Second Life (like Nikita Fride, De Designs and so on) have their branches there, there’s an own currency you can buy stuff, regions are much, much cheaper than in Second Life (60 US$ for a full prim sim) and so on and on. The average in world price for stuff from the designers though is around the same level as in Second Life. Sits like a duck, sounds like a duck, walks like a duck.
It felt so much like a copycat of Second Life, that it hurts and gives me some reasons to doubt. Is just copying almost the whole business model of Linden Lab with just „being cheaper“ printed on it enough for the future? My personal guess is quite simple: no, it is not
Let’s face the truth: Opensimulator has yet to prove it can deliver the concurrency levels of Second Life in its early days, I mean come on, around 200 Avatars currency peak is nothing compared to around 60000 in Second Life. Yes, Avination is lightning fast at the moment, but so was Second Life too way back then. The problem is not being fast alone, but how capable the underlying technology is in terms of upscaling. Avination – it if gets really successful on its own – has yet to face the problems Second Life already faced and has managed to resolve. That’s one point.
The other point is, quite simple, this one: why should I move to a much smaller grid and pay for the stuff I already got in Second Life – once again? Just because some people are overhyping it right now to make some business there? Why should I move to a grid, which competes with Second Life but in terms of service (like Physics, reliability of the underlying architecture and so on) is less advanced than Second Life? As much as I am always complaining sometimes about Second Life, I am not ready yet to do that, because AVN is way too similar for me and there’s no real need, reason to go there anyway, because Second Life is still leading the field, believe it or not. Stuff like the Hypergrid which adds to the uniqueness and I personally think about as the future of Opensimulator is disabled in Avination until now, and why should I spend my hard earned money into another dead end, when I am able to still have enough fun in the old dead end? That’s why.
So either they are going to develop sooner or later their own type of business model, uniqueness, whatever – or they are going to be gone after the people start to begin thinking again and their hype is over.
i’m thinkin you didn’t check them out long enough. there are a ton of diff from sl. especially in the way you’re able to build mega prims, gamble, restart regions from site, no freebie malls to kill businesses, community atmosphere and so on.
Oh I am quite sure I checked it out long enough. Many think this might be or even is the next bing thing, I am afraid to say it is – not. It may be another, nice big Open Simulator based grid, but that’s it.
Freebies? Well, if you really think that freebies are killing business you got the wrong idea about them. Freebies are primarily promotion for their makers. If freebies are really killing business (noooo waaay!) then the business is simply not good enough – period.
Gamble? Sure… it is there at the moment, but who knows what there is in the future. And all so other stuff is really nice to have, but where’s the meat? What’s the reason someone really should come over from Second Life to there aside the cheaper tier for a region? For some that’s enough in the long term, for me it is not. I am that simple.
I am simple, too. I’d like to own a sim without sending myself bankrupt.
These virtual worlds are a fun hobby for me, and I’m a social person. The only people who own sims are people working their hinies off with a business or two, or doing rental property. I don’t want to do that. I want to have fun and decorate my own sim.
It depends on what you want. You can bad-mouth it one way or the other, but some are going to find Avination appealing, while others are going to want to stick with Second Life.
Decide for yourself why you are even in a metaverse. The decision gets easier after that.
Right, I am looking forward to Hypergrid v. 2.0 – if my information is correct, Avination is considering tearing down their walls when it became stable. But this is still something bound to happen in a few months at beast.