AviWorlds reopens for the fifth time as ‘private community’

By:
On:
With: 5 Comments

The AviWorlds grid has opened, and then closed again, five times. Today, it reopened with a brand-new business model — that of a “private community.”

Alexsandro Pomposelli
Alexsandro Pomposelli

“AviWorlds is now back online as I promised,” said grid owner Alexandro Pomposelli — also known as Alex Ferraris in-world — in a comment earlier today.

This time, however, the grid is not allowing public registrations. Instead, new residents have to be either referred by current residents, or apply for permission to join by emailing the grid at aviworlds@aviworlds.com.

“This was due to many many attacks we were getting from outside and inside our community,” said Pomposelli. “AviWorlds has been criticised for being up and down so many times but this time I think it will be OK.”

The grid, which has previously been hosted by both of OpenSim’s biggest grid hosting providers — Dreamland Metaverse and Zetamex — is now running on its own servers, he added.

“We drive the bus now,” he said.

Alexandro Pomposelli, as Alex Ferraris, on the re-launched AviWorlds grid. (Image courtesy AviWorlds.)
Alexandro Pomposelli, as Alex Ferraris, on the re-launched AviWorlds grid. (Image courtesy AviWorlds.)

In another business-model-related change, the grid will now pay users for the time they spend online, with 3 AV$ deposited every three minutes to one randomly-chosen user. Each new resident will also get 500 AV$ in starting money. The AV$ virtual currency will be refundable, Pomposelli told Hypergrid Business, at a minimum of 5,000 AV$ and US$1 fee for PayPal processing. It costs US $1 to buy 500 AV$, and while selling is 600 AV$ to US $1.

The grid will also charge 1 AV$ for uploads and 25 AV$ to create a new group.

Regions can be rented for US $15 for a 15,000-prim region. Smaller and larger prim allotments are also available, as are parcels of various sizes.

“We are also working on our ZYNGO machines with a gaming license,” he said.

Find more information on the grid’s Facebook page and its Twitter feed. The grid also has a Google Plus page, but it hasn’t been updated as of this time.

Is it closed, or just down?

Lots of grids go offline, for maintenance, for revamps, for school vacations, or because they’re home-based grids and the computer running them is turned off.

Hypergrid Business counts those grids as open if they were up anytime during the previous month, and suspended if they were offline longer.

A grid is considered closed if it’s been down for two or more months, or if the grid has officially announced that it is closed.

While AviWorlds has also been suspended, or down for service, at various times in the past, the five times it closed down were different in that the grid officially announced it was closed, and residents lost either their currency balances, their builds, their inventories, or some combination thereof.

When grids are suspended — especially mid-sized or large commercial grids with many users — they typically continue to maintain their websites, forums, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds in order to keep their residents informed about the grid’s status.

When AviWorlds closes down it typically takes down its website as well as its social media accounts.

Maria Korolov
Latest posts by Maria Korolov (see all)