My last post was in April and I announced that my stores were all closing at Inworldz, as I had made the decision to pull up stakes there and let my multiple sims go. There were a myriad of reasons why I was leaving. Although, Inworldz was my focus for years, I had fully joined the metaverse and had land in many opensim grids. I had often told my friends… “I do not want all my virtual eggs in one basket”.
Now as most of you know, Inworldz has closed down. 😦 It is very sad and although I had left, I still felt apart of the grid. I gave a lot of my time to Inworldz. I spent a year of my life volunteering my expertise to help make the Inworldz Roleplay Hub. It was a wonderful project that so many people worked very hard on. I also, volunteered for several Inwz birthday projects, most notably for the Magellan Sea Community. I lived there and served on the board for a number of years. It is a sad day that a grid with so much going on has closed. But Life goes on…
The Metaverse
From the beginning of the opensim grids, I made it a point to try and support their progress. I was an early resident of 3rd Rock Grid and the New World Grid (now known as the FrancoGrid, I beleive). I wanted Second Life to have competition. I had felt for a long time that they were too expensive and they did not care about their customers.
When Inworldz came on my radar in 2009, I joined them with an alt, as I did in many grids first. Then in 2010, Lannorra joined and rented a sim. Inworldz was rough back then but it kept improving. By 2012, I decided to bring Phantom Rose there, in preperation for leaving Second Life. I built some great stuff at Inworldz and I was very happy for long time.
But the opensims were still less expensive for land and what I loved to do more than anything was make new environments. Exotic ports of call beckoned to me and I could not resist!
Great Canadian Grid
I found the Great Canadian Grid when I did some hypergridding from Digiworldz. I met some great people and their land prices were really really great. I could not resist and decided to buy land and start a new Phantom Rose with a brand new theme. All new builds or custom changes to existing builds. This time Phantom Rose has gone subtly Steam Punk. There are balloon elevators, steam elevators, a huge eiffle tower like central construct. I let my imagination soar and I am very please how its turning out. Although, I managed to finish most of the main sim (there are 4), and am officially open, I was never able to do a huge Grand Opening, as my RL just will not settle down!
Here are a few pictures. Please come visit, as the pictures cannot really give you the true scope of the buildings!
I cannot say enough about how fun The Great Canadian Grid is. The people are so nice and welcoming. The Grid owner, Roddie, is very responsive to his residents and gives a lot of value for your land fees. They have an active social scene. Not to be missed, Monday Night Party, where Roddie plays the tunes and the fun is garanteed!
During my time of building at GCG, they had an outage. Roddie was doing some super maintenance and upgrade, so the grid was down for a couple weeks. During this time, my interest was caught at 3rd Rock Grid again.
3rd Rock Grid
They still had first sim pricing that was very inexpensive and I could not resist that temptation! So I started a turn of the century Egyptian theme sim, and decided it would be a Phantom Rose Adventure sim.
The Duke and Duchess of Phantom Rose went on an exotic adventure to the Pyramids. I have had a lot of fun building that and decided towards the end of the build to do an interactive Mystery! Well that has delayed the opening since my real life got very busy with my parents being ill. So most of my virtual life has taken a back seat to that for over a year!
Here are some pictures:
There are pyramids with archealogical digs (and NPC archealogists); a museum, the Rose Lotus Palace (the duke and duchess’ home while visiting), the Victoria Hotel, where many english visitors stay, the Souks (shops), bath house, the Midnight Oasis ballroom with dance machine and music 24/7, the docks, Hadji’s jazz bar, Camel rides and Balloon rides and coming soon the interactive mystery!
So I hope to finish the Mystery of the Missing Mummy soon. It involves getting clues from various characters. If you solve the mystery, the official Diplomat for the outer Cairo region, will give you a trophy and a prize! I still have a bit of work to do so, check back with my blog for the Grand Opening, when I have finally finished.
Discovery Grid
Recently I also joined the Discovery Grid. I am doing a dragon/pirate kind of theme. I have an 8×8 variable region (OMG SOO BIG!) and plan on pirate boat battles and Dragons flying around. I have not gotten very far… I do have a castle up for Drax and I, a huge Dragon cave, the start of a town… Discovery has all their lands connected by oceans which is pretty cool. It takes a long time to fly or boat anywhere but its very rewarding to see what people are doing from a boat. My var is called Dragons Heart… feel free to boat or fly thru anytime.
DigiWorldz
Um, well, er… yeah, I got land there too. LOL. Yes, its a sickness. They had an incredible deal that I could not pass up. So I have land there and a future plan of maybe doing a Great Gatsby themed Phantom Rose… with bootleggers, flappers and all that Jazz!!
Realistically, I have no idea when I will find the time. So for now, my land is a sandbox. sigh… so many projects, so little time.
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Whew, so that is a long over due update for my followers. My time is limited still, but I hope as the many things in my RL settle down, you will see me in one of my many worlds. I love each and every grid that I build on. To me, grids are like my kids… you love them all for different reasons and you can never choose between them… And I hate hearing, Mom loves you best! No, I love you all. Smiles.
With Warmest Regards,
Lannorra
Phantom Rose Blog 