3rd Rock Grid residents find new homes on ZetaWorlds

Today was the last day of 3rd Rock Grid, one of the oldest grids in OpenSim.

Empty welcome region on 3rd Rock Grid. (Snapshot by Maria Korolov.)

The grid announced that it was closing back in March, and, since then, many of the former residents have found their way to other grids, with ZetaWorlds being a popular destination.

Start at Sirocco, which is slated to by the administrative hub of the new 3rd Rock Grid expat community once its done. There is already land available for rent, starting at $2.50 a month for a 10,000-prim Second Life-sized region.

Check out the 3rd Wind Community website for more information, including land prices, an events calendar, and a membership form.

The community rented a dedicated servers from ZetaWorlds and, as a non-profit, can offer very low land prices, said Alia Soulstar, a founder of the 3rd Wind Community.

There are also arts and education areas and other public lands, she told Hypergrid Business, with a total land area of more than 800 standard region equivalents.

“We had a month-long series of community meetings where we invited the owners of a handful of grids to come and talk,” Soulstar said. “Then we had a long discussion and choose this grid. A lot of the choice was based around the flexibility of having a dedicated server to design our own community around. The general feeling was that we wanted to stay together as a family, so we made the collective decision to move here.”

Land office on the Sirocco region of ZetaWorlds, with 3rd Wind Community founders Alia Soulstar and Ellemir Maven. (Snapshot by Maria Korolov.)

She recommends that people start on the Sirocco region of ZetaWorlds, where they can find out about land ownership and get other administrative information.

Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Sirocco.

“We are still under construction so haven’t made a landmark map yet, but will have that up in a few days,” she said.

People also gather on the beach on the Peapod region and Risa on the Anubis region.

Peapod region on ZetaWorlds. (Snapshot by Maria Korolov.)

Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Peapod.

But the most popular location is Infinity region’s Starfleet Infinity area, home to bars, dance places, space stations, and starships.

Departures on the Starfleet area of the Infinity region on ZetaWorlds. (Snapshot by Maria Korolov.)

Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Infinity.

Still on the Infinity region. (Snapshot by Maria Korolov.)

Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Anubis and hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Infinity.

There are also music venues on the Khamsin region, she said, with live performances four to five times per week.

Hal 9000 simulator on the Khamsin region of ZetaWorlds. (Snapshot by Maria Korolov.)

Teleport to hg.zetaworlds.com:80:Khamsin.

For those who haven’t yet transfered their regions or avatar inventories, there is still time, said Soulstar. ” 3rd Rock Grid created OARs of all the regions there and will hold them in cloud storage for a year so they can be reclaimed, and a number of IARs for active users, too. And we are able to load OARs and IARs for recovery, so all is not lost if you find yourself locked out.”

ZetaWorlds will upload the OAR region export files and IAR inventory files for users, she said, and the 3rd Wind Community will help with the process.

The OARs will be “kept for the foreseable future,” 3rd Rock Grid board member Tara Dockery, also known as Thoria Millgrove in-world, said yesterday. “We will provide those OARs to the registered owners upon request.”

Her own region, Peapod, is already on ZetaWorlds, along with its events, Dockery told Hypergrid Business.

You can read more about the transition to ZetaWorlds at Thirza Ember’s Hypergrid Safari blog.

Maria Korolov