I thought briefly about calling this post "IWz 2 B", but I think I've played the "B" card often enough... and besides, that abbreviation is a Second Life thing, and if there's one thing InWorldz unarguably is not, it's SL.

Which is, of course, why those of us who go there do so.

Anyhow... April 1st is known for more than Fooles; it's the anniversary of the founding of InWorldz. Johnny Knight collected some links from the past last December, and posted them here in the InWorldz Forum. More to the point, soror Nishi asked directly about Inworldz' history last July. The thread makes good reading, especially the post from Elenia (who, if you didn't know, is one of the Founders).

I missed InWorldz' first birthday by a week -- my join date is April 8, 2010, though I really didn't become a regular until June -- so I don't know what they did to celebrate a year ago (another thing to keep in mind is that InWorldz had fewer than 2000 members a year ago. As of right now *checks the log-in screen* the total membership is 34,625).

But, I can show you what they're doing this year:


Four sims rezzed and terraformed for the occasion, with the prosaic titles of "InWorldz Events A" through "D".  Two of them, and most of a third, were divided up for folks to claim and build on.


(Pardon the unrezzed textures... we'll get back to that.)

As you might guess, there's no thematic continuity between one parcel to the next, nor did there really need to be.  That does make it a little difficult to shoot photos of one build with so many others crowding for attention from all sides, but hey... it's a party, right? Here are a few quick highlights:

 

Teal Freenote's lovely sculpture garden.



Zauber Paracelsus' steampunk "hookah"
(I know that's not what it's supposed to be, Z, but... heh)



The performance stage
(each time I went to take photos, there seemed to be a good crowd)


Towering over it all is another of soror Nishi's fanciful mega-builds -- and as usual with soror's work, it should be admired in both day and night settings.


... topped off (at about 400 meters) with this happy fellow:



~

Now then... about those unrezzed textures... and the almost complete inability to walk from one display to the next... and that I had to make four separate visits to get the few shots I did (there are more online)... and then crashed each time while teleporting back to the home sim...

Three out of four of the exhibit sims are severely script-heavy, just by looking at the number of moving parts they have, not counting notecard and landmark givers.  It's kind-of too bad that InWorldz' new script engine, Phlox, entered live beta testing only the day before the party started; I'm betting that the Birthday would be a lot less laggy if Phlox were running there.

And while we're on the subject of improvements to InWorldz' code...


At the highest point of region A, overlooking the performance venue, is a plaza featuring a time capsule for people to put notecards in, and a contributory photo wall. With my virtual archaeologist's hat on -- as well as being a loyal InWorldz denizen -- I'm pleased that they've provided another means of recording the grid's history so far.  But, as I've pointed out in the forum (and mentioned at that plaza to some folks who can get word to some other folks...), there's still a "legacy bug" from the OpenSimulator software, from which Inworldz forked away two years ago: every item rezzed there returns a creation date of December 31, 1969!

I have constantly relied upon Inspect creation dates in my historical research in Second Life; "Seconderth" simply would not have been possible without it. One of these days, someone is going to want to give InWorldz the same treatment, but unless that bug is fixed, they'll get nowhere.

("Paging Tranquility Dexler..!")

Meanwhile, I have nothing but the best wishes for continued success to InWorldz itself, and to every avvie who calls it home, and to all those who will one day drop by for a visit and decide to stay.

Many Happy Returns of the Day!

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