The weather’s starting to cool here in the US, at least on some days, though it’s been quite unpredictable lately. With a lot going on in the real world, diving into virtual ones seems more appealing. So, it’s no surprise that the number of registered users and the land area has gone up in public OpenSim grids.
What caught me off guard was the drop in total active users—over 2,700 fewer than before.
Now, some of this might be chalked up to things like Moonrose, which had over 900 actives last month, facing website troubles and not reporting stats this cycle. Vida Dupla and Great Canadian Grid, both with relatively high user engagement, also didn’t report or have closed their doors.
Yet, several other grids noted noticeable reductions in active users. For instance, OSgrid saw over 800 fewer active users than last month, Craft World dropped by more than 200, and five more grids reported decreases of over 100 users each.
Clearly, something is happening beyond grid closures and reporting hiccups.
Maybe it’s the Halloween spirit taking people away from their screens, or perhaps folks are simply enjoying the fall weather—sweater-clad walks and colorful leaves abound?
Actually, no! Thanks to a heads-up from Paul Clevett of Wolf Territories, we know OSgrid is down for maintenance. After checking out his tip, I discovered they’re offline since November 7 due to storage issues.
The announcement revealed that OSgrid, with 17 years of accumulated data—hundreds of millions of assets—is running out of space. They’ve stored both asset data and a redundant copy inefficiently, leading to each asset appearing larger than it is.
To tackle this, they need to revamp the storage, shuffling around millions of assets and getting rid of the phantom extra space. Such operations could disrupt user experience, so they opted for maintenance mode.
The bad news: they aren’t sure how long this will take. The good news: no expected asset loss.
Currently, I’m tracking 2,677 public grids, with 295 active this month and 232 sharing their statistics. If your grid’s stats aren’t represented, drop a line to [email protected] to be featured in future reports and gain extra visibility online.
For this month, OSgrid holds the largest grid by land area, boasting 32,867 standard region equivalents, despite losing over 2,000 regions. Meanwhile, Wolf Territories Grid takes the lead in activity, with 7,379 unique logins over the past 30 days.
In our stats, we often don’t account for grids running on DreamGrid—a user-friendly version of OpenSim—since many are private.
OpenSim, much like Second Life, is a free, open-source platform for crafting virtual worlds, accommodating both novices and experts in building and connecting worlds. You can set up OpenSim on your own servers using DreamGrid or the official OpenSim installer, with commercial hosting available for under $5 a region.
For hosting: check this provider list. To get the recommended Firestorm viewer or find content for your OpenSim world: start here.
In exciting news, we’ve rolled out the Hypergrid Business newsletter. Each month on the 15th, shortly after this stats update, we’ll send out a newsletter featuring all the OpenSim happenings from the past month. Interested? You can subscribe here.
Let’s dive into this month’s top social grids. In these spaces, bustling activity is prime. Larger user bases draw newcomers, while merchants and event organizers look for the most lively arenas to connect and engage.
Here are the top 25 most popular grids this month:
1. Wolf Territories Grid: 7,379 users
2. OSgrid: 4,046 users
3. GBG World: 2,498 users
…and so on.
In terms of OpenSim content, we currently see 20,973 product listings on Kitely Market, with 41,105 variations—35,866 being exportable. Kitely Market has served orders to 632 different grids so far.
As shown in the chart, the growth in Kitely Market largely stems from exportable content (highlighted in green), while the red, representing non-exportable items, has remained steady for eight years now.
Kitely Market, the largest collection of lawful OpenSim content, is available to both open and closed grids. If you have a closed grid, here’s how you can connect.
Plus, Kitely announced support for PBR materials and larger textures just this month.
This month, we welcomed a new grid—NakedWorldz—to our database.
Sadly, nine grids have been suspended: Angel Grid, Ares World, Binders World, among others. Should they stay offline, they’ll be marked as closed in future reports.
If you find any grid with revised login URLs or website addresses, email me, and I’ll update the records.
Shifting to land area rankings, here’s how they line up. Keep in mind, this is based on standard region equivalents, with active user counts including hypergrid visitors whenever possible.
1. OSgrid: 32,867 regions
2. Wolf Territories Grid: 29,987 regions
3. Kitely: 18,126 regions
…following to the other grids.
Finally, if you know of any other open public grids missing from our database, reach out at [email protected].
In every issue, we strive to share valuable insights and updates for our vibrant virtual community. Stay informed, and see you in next month’s installment!
