Inworldz, is it for you?

It's just come to light that owner of Major Islands, Scott Major, recently closed shop and pulled out of IW. According to the forums, his original plan was to wait until the last renters paid period was over but, unfortunately for the renters, it did not work that way. He closed down his sim, returned the objects to their owners, and scooted on out of IW.

Why did this happen? Frustration is the only answer. Why was he frustrated enough to completely screw over his residents, who in turn are also residents of IW? Because IW is a pioneer world and crap happens. Sometimes it happens daily and often to the same cluster of sims. The founders try their hardest to keep up with the bugs, they work hard and fix things as they go along. But it's not an overnight process. They've never hidden that IW is a pioneer world. It's on the forums about sims crashing and needing restarts. It's on the forums when things break or lag is extremely high. Not only are the shoutouts for help there, but the founders themselves touching base with users who are having the issues.



Anyone who decides to buy an entire sim (or even rent a parcel) needs to remember that Inworldz is a pioneer world. A person cannot own a sim in the papa grid, come to Inworldz, and think it's going to work the same exact way. It won't. Looks are deceiving and because we look so much like papa grid, we often forget the behavior is much different. A person needs patience and understanding when working and playing Inworldz. If you can't handle it, if you don't have the patience or the ability to simply log off when your level of annoyance starts to overwhelm you, then maybe Inworldz isn't right for you......yet.

Be a responsible person and remember to do your research into a grid to make sure it's a good fit for you. That you're ready to take on a task that can make you pull your hair out and pound your fist on your desk sometimes.

Inworldz has come very far but they do have a ways to go so do your research before buying. What we don't need here is people who decide to pull their toys and run home with no care that they left a whole bunch of people stranded and scrambling.

Thoughts on Content Theft

Content Theft, Content Theft, Content Theft...say it three times and it must be true. At least that is the theory of some. If they say it, they claim it, they insist upon it, then it must be true. Right?

One of the larger issues surrounding IW for some people isn't the grid maintenance, it's not the lack of Truth hair or the fact that the prims are so much more tiny or larger then papa grid. It's not the sims that crash, sometimes not being able to figure out the whys behind the crash for a few days. And it's definitely not the ever loving techno-color bug that makes avatars turn into sparkling rainbows.

It's the content theft.

Now, before we go any further and you sit there going "WE DON'T HAVE CONTENT THEFT IN IW!" you may want to take a few deep breaths and read just a bit further. You might even enjoy this post. Although, then again...maybe you won't. Time will tell. It's a long post, so you may want to grab a cup of coffee and get comfy, cause here goes...

It's not an uncommon occurrence to sit in the IW coffee shop, welcoming new residents and a freshly minted person suddenly starts yelling from the freebie area "you stole this stuff!" at anyone willing to listen. These particular people are fond of traveling to different stores and laying into any poor soul who happens to be there claiming they are thieves and will be reported. Sometimes it's after they have de-ruthed themselves into the supposedly stolen content and other times it's done in ruth form. The more interesting part is when they say "That belly button on that skin looks like 'x' skin on papa grid. It's stolen! But I'm not telling...hey anything for good content."

Face palm much?

Before I get into whether or not IW has content theft, I would like lay down a few ground rules for content theft police people, here after referred to as CTPP. Please, if you wish to be taken seriously, at the very least don't use capital letters and shout at anyone. You have seriouz bizness and shouting gets you nowhere. Second, as a content creator myself, I would be mortified if those who liked my products started randomly accusing people based on leaf texture or belly buttons or any other likeness. By all means, drop a note card on the creator with your suspicions and let the creator handle it. I heard a story once where information was dropped on a creator in the papa grid about their alt in IW. You never know who is where and what name they are using. It's always best to keep things on the low lest you embarrass yourself or worse...give a bad name to the content creator you love so much by bad-mouthing their alt.

Now for the Big Question: Does IW have content theft. Let me ask you this...does any virtual world have content theft? If I answer no, would I be lying to you? If I answer yes, would I have a residents of the world after me for lying to you? If I say I don't know...would I be speaking the truth?

I'm going with the last one...at this point...I really don't know. IW has had content issues in the past and the founders have done take downs. They've had drama surrounding some content (due to refusing to take it down until alleged original creator came forward) and then took it down. As to whether they currently have stolen items on their grid...I really can't answer that. You can wave an object in front of my face and scream at me "EVERYONE KNOWS THIS IS 'enter x creator here'!" stomp your feet and demand that I accept it's content theft. The only response you're probably going to get is a blank stare as I tell you to contact the original creator so they can handle the issue properly. Probably because other then a few select creators on the papa grid, I really won't know one from another just because you do and I'm not going to assume others are as knowledgeable about content as you are.

Inworldz takes content theft very seriously. If you suspect someone has stolen from another, please do the right thing and contact who you believe to be the original creator. Proper DMCAs must be filed in order to have a take down completed (rightfully so) and if something has not been taken down, then don't always assume the worst. Creators have no obligation to inform you of their alts, if the item was really theirs or just a similar product to one they make. It is not up to CTPP to decide if something is stolen or not and often, the more you scream about it, blog about it, and throw tantrums about it...the more horrible you look and less seriously you are taken by others. It also makes a mockery of real content theft and makes it that much harder for creators to be taken seriously when true theft actually occurs.

Remember, Inworldz does not want stolen stuff on the grid any more then you do. Please handle the matter like the adults we are supposed to be and do the right thing by reporting it to the original creator. Anything else is immature and lacking of manners with no real accomplishments towards ending content theft.

Do No Harm!

I logged in tonight to find two of my scripted objects were returned to me by the land manager where I live. The manager tells me that the scripts were killing the sim, so she had to return them. Fair enough. I don't want to be the cause of pain. Now comes the rub. The scripts in the troublesome objects have been running on this sim for just over 2 weeks without an issue. Today, there is an issue. Today they have suddenly become sim killers. What went wrong??

I learned that a patch was put into place on the server running the sim I live on. That patch it seems, changed the environment in such a way that my scripts suddenly became hostile to the environment. The result, was that the scripts were now, well on the way to killing the sim before they were returned.

Do No Harm! Had I been selling this object in my shop, they could be spread all over the grid. If that were the case, as this new patch is distributed across the grid, several sims would be choked into submission by my now, rogue script.

Say what you want about papa grid but one thing I know they never do is break existing content. There is no excuse for breaking content. I understand why it may happen, but the lack of due diligence isn't an excuse, it is a problem. A problem, if not addressed, will cripple this growing grid faster than any other problem that comes to mind. So with this in mind, I would like to propose a rule for IW development:

Rule #1: Do Not Break Existing Content - EVER.