Stay inside this month, in front of the air conditioner, and catch up on all the OpenSim events you’ve been missing.
Nara’s Nook celebrates new releases
The authors on the Nara’s Nook grid are celebrating new releases today, with a party on the Reader Cove region.
Teleport to world.narasnook.com:8900:Greyville via the hypergrid, then do a local teleport over to the Reader Cove region.
The party starts at 5 p.m. Pacific.
Virtual Paradise adult grid to hold grand opening August 15
Virtual Paradise, the new adult-themed grid, is growing fast, even though its official grand opening isn’t for another two weeks.
“We are up to 700-plus registered accounts in less than a month,” grid owner Keith Sparkman told Hypergrid Business.
The grid has also nearly doubled in size over the past two weeks, from 11 regions to 19, partly on the strength of its $5 region rental discount, which is still being offered, he said.
The grand opening party will be held at 6 p.m. Pacific on the grid’s Virtual Paradise region.
Exo-Life readies for August 17 grand opening event
Exo-Life Virtual World is preparing the grid for its August 17th official opening, grid manager Bryan French told Hypergrid Business.
“All that needs done on the webpage end is to upload our customized viewers, which should take place after a few more days of testing,” he said. “However any viewer can continue to connect to the grid until August 17.”
In other grid preparations the world’s money system is now active, he added.
“Our grid provider completed the ‘money module’ on July 25th and the Exo-Life staff thoroughly tested it over the weekend,” said grid associate Yael Yashan, known in-world as MaryJane Wilcox.
The grid staff completed writing and testing money payment scripts for the grid including vendors, camping, and sploder scripts, she added.
“The staff felt these scripts would be the best choice for starting the world’s economy,” she said.
According to Yashan, the grid currently has 3,550 Gs — Gonkbrunk Shekels — in circulation. General Wilcox — the grid’s equivalent of Second Life’s Governon Linden — has  an additional 2,500 Gs in reserve, she added.
The grid plans to post the total amount of currency in circulation twice a month in a notice at the grid’s Welcome Center.
Exo-Life Virtual World is sponsored by the non-profit organization Kol Ami Havurah which provides non-commercial radio stations and Jewish educational services in West Virginia.
Exo-Life is unique among other public OpenSim grids in that it plans to have hypergrid connectivity only to eight other grids.
Virtual Highway upgrades, begins Halloween prep
It’s a sure sign that the summer is almost over — the Halloween decorations are starting to go up!
“Work is progressing on a three-region Halloween build,” Virtual Highway owner Gene Call told Hypergrid Business. “This build will center around two horror movies and our resident creators are having a ball coming up with ideas and seeing them appear before their eyes. This build will be opening the first of October and is a must see for any and all who love Halloween.”
In other news, Virtual Highway has upgraded to the latest version of OpenSim, 0.8.
“We are excited that the upgrade allows the Virtual Highway community to set up variable regions,” said Call. “We look forward to the new creative opportunities this will open up.”
Variable-sized regions allows grids to offer larger area of land, usually at a steep discount over what the same amount of land would have cost in the form of traditional regions. In addition, because it’s all one region, there are no border crossings.
“This affords land owners the ability to have a larger expansion for things like sailing or driving vehicles without the interference of sim lines or crossings,” said Call. “Yet it still allows them to parcel the landed as needed.”
The new version of OpenSim also has a new default physics engine, BulletSim.
“Due to the improvements in the BulletSim physics, our residents are having a lot of fun running the vehicle scripts,” Call said. “Boats sailing, cars tearing around these large Var Regions… fun for all!”
Virtual Highway is best known for its music scene, with two to five events scheduled on any typical day.
This month’s highlight is a Kiss Tribute event on August 9, from 5 to 7 p.m. Pacific, organized by DJ Dark and DB Music Productions.
“This will be a concert presentation featuring band members in full Kiss attire and makeup, an elaborate stage and light show,” said Call. “Thank you for the creative contributions of Megan Cline, Danny Berg and Suzie Sak in making this show possible.”
Check out the grid calendar for more events.
Hypergrid Safari adds Sunday event
In addition to their regular hypergrid trips every Wednesday, the Hypergrid Safari has added one more safari, Sundays at noon Pacific time.
They will continue their Wednesday events, which meet  at noon Pacific time on the Magica region on OSgrid, hypergrid address hg.osgrid.org:80:Magica.
For more information, check out their Hypergrid Safari Google Plus community.
Island Oasis begins offering mainland parcels
Island Oasis began offering mainland parcels on August 1.
“The mainland will be completely residential to foster a sense of community and will be available for purchase only as quarter sims,” Island Oasis marketing director Liz Harrington — also known as Alysin Paolino in-world — told Hypergrid Business. “This affordable purchase option will be available through our Land Store.”
The land will be added gradually, she added.
“Island Oasis will not be churning out regions just for the sake of inflating numbers of regions on the grid that are not occupied,” she said. “Instead, the mainland will begin with smaller number of regions and will only add on as needed. Keeping the integrity of our accurate numbers is very important to Island Oasis.”
Mainland residents will be able to move to a different parcel at any time, she said.
“This added benefit will make it easier for friends to have locations near one another without feeling stuck where they first chose their quarter sim,” she said.
The parcels cost $11 a month and can hold up to 1,500 prims.
The grid will be having its Town Hall Meeting on Sunday,  August 3rd at 1 p.m. Pacific.
For more events, check out the Island Oasis grid calendar.
DreamNation upgrades, adds own currency
DreamNation has upgraded to the latest version of OpenSim this month and has rolled out its own currency, DN Coins, or DNC$
“We also have successfully upgraded to OpenSim 0.8, and though we are still working through some of the problems of conforming our own proprietary engines to 0.8, we are all very impressed and what a giant leap forward it is for OpenSim,” grid founder Waki Janus told Hypergrid Business.
New retailers continue to arrive on the grid, Janus added, particularly after the upgrade and the rollout of the new currency. “The successful introduction of our own easy-to-use currency DNC$ has been embraced with enthusiasm by our members, and has been a big stimulant to the DreamNation economy. Among those who have joined us in the last fortnight is the very well known Second Life retailer Anthony Art and several of its partners who specialise in mesh products. These important retailers will undoubtedly also stimulate demand for other retailers who have been with us and stayed loyal to us for awhile such as Zanzo Skins and SMB Mesh Bodies.”
DreamNation’s currency is internally developed.
“We investigated alternatives to Virwox and in the end felt we would be no better off with an alternative currency provider so made the decision to establish our own currency,” Janus said. “It has a US$ monetary value and is redeemable. It was surprisingly easy to establish. One of our developers wrote the plug-in for the currency and worked on the principle of keeping it as easy and simple for our members as possible, while protecting the grid against issues of money laundering and fraud. However, because we are a closed grid, we felt they were unlikely to be a major issues.”
The grid does however set strict limits on buying and selling DNC$.
The advantage of having a local currency is ease of use for residents.
“There is no need for members to register for the currency or go through complicated steps to authorise expenditure in-world,” Janus said. “Members can easily buy DNC$ for use in world at their members page on our website. They can also redeem their currency on that page for US$, though requests for redemption must be manually approved before the funds are released.”
The grid also set up a separate reserve account to ensure adequate funding for cash-outs.
“Funds in these accounts must be maintained at levels above the US$ dollar value of DNC$ in circulation,” Janus said.
Music on Littlefield
As always, Littlefield grid is holding a number of musical events this month.
Of particular interest is a live music event at the Sound City Nightclub, where acclaimed guitarist Joaquin Gustav, live from Argentina, will perform a relaxing hour of tango, Latin and jazz music.
Teleport in via hypergrid to lfgrid.com:8002:Littlefield East at 3 p.m. Pacific on Sunday, August 10.
For a full list of events, check the Littlefield grid calendar.
Friday parties at Dorena’s World
It’s too late for today, but set your calendar for Fridays at the Rock House on Dorena’s World, where there’s a themed music night every week at 8 p.m. CET — 11 a.m. Pacific.
Hypergrid teleport to dorenas-world.de: 8002:Nihilon.
Grid Calendars
Many grids have calendars showcasing their events. If your grid’s calendar isn’t in this list, please send an email to editor@hypergridbusiness.com.
We’ve also added some calendars from hypergrid-enabled grids on the Hyperica site. To be added, a calendar must list only hypergrid-enabled events, and have an iCal export function. Google calendars, for example, are perfect for this.
- 3rd Rock Grid Event Calendar
- Avalonia Estate Events Calendar
- Avination Events Calendar – and for more details and to stay on top of Avination happenings with the  Avination Facebook group, and the Avination Live Music Facebook group.
- Craft grid calendar
- FrancoGrid events calendar
- GridTalk Events Calendar focusing on German-language grids
- InWorldz event calendar  and its Event Lists forum
- Island Oasis Calendar
- Kitely Events Calendar
- Kitely Events and Activities Forum
- Kitely’s Google + Community
- Littlefield Event Calendar
- Metropolis Events Calendar
- OSgrid event announcements
- SkyLife Events Calendar
- Virtual Highway events calendar
Also check out the Hypergrid Events and OpenSim Virtual communities on Google Plus!
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