AviWorlds, the grid that oscillates between proclaiming itself the highest-priced grid and the lowest-priced grid is back on the lowest-priced side again, with a free region offer for all residents.
Addition regions are available for as low as $5 a month for a standard-sized, 15,000-prim region, and up to $25 a month for a two-by-two-sized varregion. Full region prices here.
The grid currently supports hypergrid teleports and access to the Kitely Market.
There are no time limits on how long a resident can keep the free region.
“As long as the resident is showing a good amount of presence in the grid he or she can keep it forever,” grid owner Alexandro Pomposelli told Hypergrid Business. “The only restrictions are that the player must participate in the grid. Be online minimum three times per week. Be a true resident. That’s all we ask.”
AviWorlds does hourly backups of its regions, as well as avatar inventories, with 19 terabytes of storage capacity, he said.
“AviWorlds has been online for 14 months straight now showing more stability,” he added, referring to the grid’s history of shutting down unexpectedly.
However, although AviWorlds hasn’t officially closed down for good during the past 14 months, it has had unexpected downtime, including earlier this month.
Pomposelli said that he was inspired to make the free region offer because he noticed that people were having trouble with DreamGrid, Sim-on-a-Stick, OSgrid’s region installer, and other free OpenSim options.
“I notice that a lot of people are having problems installing the free OpenSim installers,” he said.
People have been reporting problems with configuration issues such as setting up ports properly for hypergrid access or setting the name of the grid, he said.
“AviWorlds is solving this problem,” he said. “We will place a region for you free of charge.  No headaches trying to fix ports and with bugs, etcetera, etcetera.”
The average price of a region in OpenSim is $15.
OutWorldz reported a total of 1,464 grids running the DreamGrid software. On the 393 reporting their stats, there are 3,053 regions, according to Outworldz founder Fred Beckhusen.
These numbers only include online grids that have the “Publicity” setting enabled, he told Hypergrid Business, and doesn’t include people who download the software and run it privately.
Stay safe
And now, my usual note of warning about AviWorlds.
First, please remember that virtual worlds aren’t banks. Your virtual currency deposits aren’t federally insured. So don’t keep more money in your virtual wallet than you can afford to lose. This is especially the case for AviWorlds, which shuts down on a regular basis, and where residents have reported losing in-world currency.
Second, the free region offer requires local residency. If you want to have an avatar and land on AviWorlds, protect yourself. Keep local backups of your content. When you make friends, make sure you have some way to reach them outside the grid, in case AviWorlds shuts down again and your friends list disappears.
This happens on a regular basis — Pomposelli has a history of shutting down the grid, announcing that it is closed for good, and taking down all social media accounts. I stopped counting after he did it for the tenth time.
I recommend that people keep their primary avatar on another grid, such as OSgrid, Kitely, or Digiworldz, and teleport into AviWorlds for events. That way, your inventories, friends lists, and virtual wallets are located somewhere reliable and if AviWorlds goes down, you won’t lose everything.
Also, if your group uses AviWorlds for events or anything else, keep your social media discussions in a separate group, under your own control, so that Pomposelli can’t shut it all down on a whim.
For a history of AviWorlds ups and downs, check out our archive of related articles.
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