VAR regions

There is a lot of testing and experimenting with VAR regions (scalable, and not a "megaregion"). You can read up on the VAR wiki page on how to create one, find tips on migrating your existing regions etc. If you want to visit / check one, try popping by Event plaza, or Jurrasic park regions. VAR is a work in progress, so expect minor glitches that can impact anyone.  Like, don't be surprised if you can read chat conversations in neighbouring sims all over sudden, or if on a var, terraforming is a bit chunkier than usual. Performance wise, on the loadtest i attended VAR runs like a charm. Bugs are being squashed at each new update. Red Dragon will remain on single regions for the time being. as i don't want to load 150K+ prims on a VAR just yet.

According to hypergridbusiness who vigorously collect stats on as much grids as they can, the top 40 of opensim based grids dropped by a 5000 regions, due to some housekeeping and spring cleanup. People come people go, but overall OSgrid seems to become more active again, more events are hosted, more clubs and DJ's are active, and a steady flow of new people is setting up and building their new regions.

Dev's are figuring out ways to get around the issues with NAT loopback, as apparently in the US & UK the ISP's love to hand out "poor mans" routers that don't support it, or have it disabled in their firmwares. (in general, and i think globally ISP's don't like you to run servers on home connections).
My advice is to buy & run a decent router if you plan to host a server. And although, it really sucks not being able to run your own region without "buying stuff first", it's well worth it, and generally not "unaffordable". A list of supported routers is found here. Mind there are much more supported, than unsupported routers, and you can find them from € 15  / $ 18 and up already, depending on your further requirements. Also make sure to properly troubleshoot your connection, before running to the store. In 95% of the "problems" i've seen in the past 4 years it's misconfigurations and not NAT loopback causing problems.
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More party news

Saturday the 15th of March Red Dragon Club X presents "The House of Beats" Dance party. Grab your rave-sticks and come party. DJ Foxx Bode will run the stream, and teach you what that subwoofer below your desk was meant for again. Your host will be SnakeDance Moonwing. The party starts at around 10.00 grid time, until 13.00 max. (Thats 19.00 to 22.00 if you are in europe). Sunday morning will have a chill-out session with more mainstream music. 

Enough about the weekends for this post, you can also party Today ! The "Blue Wave" club on Pyramid region, runs events every wednesday, at 7.00 UTC. The region houses a large pyramid, with a big pool inside. And you party under water ! Your host here is Samira Samtanko. 

I'm awaiting the opening dates for Club Quantum and Club Holland, and most of the events listed here are also present on LBSA plaza's infoboard. Another simple way to find these clubs even if you forgot the name, is hopping by wright plaza and visit the Travel office. It's kept up to date with the latest and greatest. 

Notes after troubleshooting some installs in last 2 months after the break.

Clubbing

Red Dragon kicked off again at today, and had a nice opening, with DJ Foxx, Host Snakedance, and an average of 10 visitors. Like expected, the Club X region, carrying half the prims and scripts compared to the main club, performed excellent. No lag, no crashes, all went smooth, and we had a nice party. We ran a 3 hour set, and afterwards we popped to "Prim club" with all visitors, and continued to dance on tunes by DJ LadyJo.

The event  at Prim Club is currently still playing, and at 17.00 PST another party will be occurring at Sunburst region. Meaning you can party all weekend in OSG, listen to a variety of tunes, and visit live events. All travel offices have been updated with some new regions to explore, so in weekends, no need to be bored.  For more events check the boards at LBSA plaza region in OSgrid.

Possibly a short OSG loadtest for scalable regions will be announced later tonight, taking place on Event plaza. Also keep posted for next weeks events listing, as "Red Dragon On Tour" will start its travels through the grid. We will stop posting G+ invites, but publish here and in the plaza's if and when events take place.

Red Dragon Re-Opening

Despite my enthusiastic plans to open this weekend, Red Dragon will re-open next weekend, and start Bi-weekly dance party's. The first one will be held at Red Dragon "Club X" region, on saturday the 1st of March, which will be the "formal" Re-opening of  Red Dragon.

I was actually planning to open this weekend, but after going through all logs of the loadtest, there are some things i want to address first. Also this weekend is packed with events already, and as stated in the previous post, i don't feel the need to compete / interfere with any other events. (I'd rather visit those).

Tonight there is a party in Posh "Prims Club" at 1 PM grid time, with DJ Ladyjo Martin, and at 5 PM Ladyjo is throwing in another set at "The Sunburst". Every sunday there is a live event at the Maritime, details on that will likely be posted on OSgrid's Forums , so really no need to be bored this weekend. 

Apart for the Red Dragon club firing up, i have another plan, but need some help of OSgrid's current DJ's and club owners. I would really like to start "Red Dragon On Tour" .

The tour should become a series of event i have been planning for a little while. In that tour, i want to visit a different club each 2 weeks, spin a (themed) set of 1 hour maximum, after which the "resident DJ" takes over.  I have discussed it with some club owners and DJ's already, and most seem to like the plan, so were going to try and make it happen. For now, i have 4 places willing to participate, so if you own a club, are a DJ or just would like to throw a party, and you like the idea, get in touch. The "finale" of this tour will hopefully take place on Event Plaza, after months of paryt-ing in all the clubs OSG has.

Apart from the events, i think it's a nice way to find a structured way to liven up OSG with events, keep drama far away by excluding conflicting interests, as well as being able to "serve" all time zones. In the end, we ARE the "community", so might just as well make it great to be here. Also clubs have the best tools to do community building, and i think that if we get off our islands and collaborate more, we could have more fun than we do, next to making OSG more appealing to "fresh blood". 

Since i'm around for some years, people often ask me why i didnt ever run events in my huge builds. The answer is simple, my machine didn't have the power to do so. And with only 3 clubs organising "regular" events, the tour was also not really an option. Now  i have all the abilities, and there are more clubs popping up and getting alive, there are no excuses to not to go for it. Time only will prove if there is sufficient animo, but doesn't hurt to try. 

If you need more power, want to be online 24/7 or just want to unload your DSL line, read along carefully. My regions are now hosted by Kris Terrien, and so could yours. You can find more information on specs and pricing on his blog at http://blog.qlittlefeather.com/  You can both rent complete servers, or just regions, at very, very affordable pricing. The server holds my regions without any performance issues, and there are over 80.000 prims on the 9 regions it hosts, so you really get Bang for your bucks.