Top Stories of The 2010s, Part Four

The 2010s are over. But as we say goodbye to the decade, there's some looking back at what happened. The Newser has covered much in the past ten years, and we're looking at some of the top stories that made the news and got more attention than most.

Read the fourth part of the series in Extra.

News and Commentary: More On InWorldz's Closing

The InWorldz grid is gone. On Friday afternoon, most of their residents found themselves no longer able to log in, and by Saturday morning the place had completely shut down. The closing has left many sad former users with a decision: where do I go now? From both InWorldz and Second Life residents, there have been a number of other questions such as "How could this happen?" "Will there be another InWorldz?" "Could this happen to Second Life?" Yours truly offers a few answers, or partial answers, based on my observations.

Read the article in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

Weekend in Review

A number of things happened this weekend. On late Friday and Saturday morning, the InWorldz Grid shut down. On Saturday, there was a memorial concert for musician Maxx Sabretooth. On Sunday, the Relay for Life in Second Life had the closing event of it's 2018 fundraising season, the Relay Wrap-Up.

Stay tune for more on these, and other events, in the Newser

SL Video: "InWorldz' Farewell Party"

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From Holocluck Henley in July 27, "inWorld's final day and its final party. Towards the end as the party sim became unavailable we had to move to public land (which wasn't so bad). Best of luck to IW friends, acquaintances and colleagues wherever you end up."

InWorldz Fades Away

Friday July 27 was InWorldz last day. Logging in at 2:30PM PST, people were gathering at InWorldz Desert Island, one of the last sims still up.Most of the rest of the sims had been shut down. Some were lamenting the downfall of the grid, others were looking back at the fun they had, and perhaps later on in another virtual world.

Ten minutes later, as the radio was playing, "Closing Time," the sim crashed.

I relogged, and was moved to InWorldz Sandbox2. This would be the last place in the grid I would see. Minutes later at 2:55PM PST, my viewer quit working. When I restarted, it listed 66 people still online, but I never could get on again. And in Discord chat, the number still there was getting smaller and smaller.

InWorldz, after over nine years in operation, and a week of raised and dashed hopes and plenty of confusion, has finally been shut down.

Closing time, time for you to go out
To the places you will be from
Closing time, this room won't be open
Till your brothers or your sisters come.

So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits
I hope you have found a friend
Closing time, every new beginning
Comes from some other beginning's end, yeah.

I know who I want to take me home
I know who I want to take me home
I know who I want to take me home
Take me home. 

Bixyl Shuftan

InWorldz's Rise and Decline

When it comes to virtual worlds, to many residents there's Second Life and then there's everybody else. But some among the "everybody else" stood out. For several years, the largest alternative to Second Life was the InWorldz grid, which stood over other OpenSpace worlds in terms of both active and total accounts. A few years ago, with rumors of Linden Lab thinking about an "exit strategy," a number of residents were taking a closer look at the smaller virtual world. So what happened?

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

IW Video: "InWorldz Winter Fest 2016"

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From Ben Vennegoor on Dec 7, "Impression of the official InWorldz Sponsored Event Fall Fest 2016.
Benefit for Toys 4 Tots."  http://www.inworldz.com

Brand new video from the Tuna Bandit showcasing our gorgeous Christmas Year End Event for Toys for Tots! We have tons of events going on for it, and will be posting them as we go! Stop in today! http://places.inworldz.com/InWorldz%20Events%20A Register at http://inworldz.com! It's free and fun!

RFL in InWorldz

Ceremony, Entertainment and Lap Costume theme Schedule

For Relay on Saturday, Oct 15th - 8am - 8pm IWT

**Environment early evening**

7:00  Warm Up Party DJ Martin Glom

8:00  Opening Ceremonies

8:30 -10am  Survivors and Caregivers laps DJ  Ashley 

Martin Theme  workout gear

10:00 DJ  GRIFFIN   

Theme  SPORTSWEAR

11:00 DJ Cheryl  

Foxx Theme Leather 

**Environment Mid Night**

12:00  Luminaria Ceremony - Sage and Rycon Bamaisin 

Theme Formal

1:00  DJ Kira Wildfire 

Theme Feel Good Blues - Wear your fav blues clothes!

2:00  DJ Martin with OldeSoul  

Theme Purpleicious

3:00  DJ  Fantasia Rhodes  

Theme  Country - Fav Country Wear

4:00  DJ  Arathorn Dragomir

**Environment Morning**

5:00  Fight Back Ceremony DJ Cataplexia

Theme Hero

6:00  DJ Bain   

Theme Colors of the Rainbow

7:00  DJ Cataplexia    

Theme Calling All Lightbringers (wear Whites)

7:45  Closing Ceremony

8:00  Final Lap DJ Cataplexia

                                  http://places.inworldz.com/RFL%20Awareness/87/235/23

Press Release: 2016 Relay For Life of InWorldz - Oct 15th 8am-8pm IWT

2016 Relay For Life of InWorldz Come to an End But The Fight Still Goes On
This Saturday, November 15th at 8am IWT***
and for the following 12 hours, we are inviting you to join us in celebration, with our 5th Relay season of Relay For Life of InWorldz.

This year we are delirious to announce, as of this past Sunday, you have helped our volunteers pass the Iz$ 4.5 Million Izzie mark, for this season! On behalf of all of us at RFL of IW, a warm thank YOU.

We are so proud of the hard work of so many people who gave their support to Relay For Life this season, from offers of time and talent for Relay. It is truly is a beautiful thing.

As we wave our teams flag in fun, in the end, we are one big team and it all goes to the same place. Big teams, little teams, individuals, big donations, small ones, even a single izzie, all adds up to something so much bigger than the sum of its parts. When we work together, we can accomplish anything.

Many parts of Relay is filled with symbolism, one of which is why we walk through the night. It symbolizes the journey of a survivor, from daylight of health, through the darkness of cancer and it's treatments, into the dawn of a new day of remission.

Come walk the day with us in celebration of LIFE.

** We Celebrate Life, But We Fight For The Cure **


          http://places.inworldz.com/RFL%20Awareness/87/235/23

Relay for Life in InWorldz Season Opener

The Relay for Life for Second Life raises hundreds of thousands of US dollars for cancer research every year. But the Relay does not confine itself to just one virtual world. Last Saturday, August 6, the Relay for Life of InWorldz had their Kickoff event. While a smaller event then it's Second Life counterpart in March, it still drew a number of people.

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games. 

InWorldz Celebrates Seven Year Anniversary

 As Second Life gets ready to celebrate it's anniversary, the InWorldz Grid is celebrating it's own. In late March, the IW7B took place, with numerous exhibits across many sims and a number of events, such as live music performances. After a week however, the official events were over, though the exhibits remained.

 While our main week of events is over there is still plenty to do and see.  We have many exhibits, art displays, and interactive activities for you to see throughout the rest of the month.

Celebrate 7 epic years of creativity, collaboration and community in InWorldz at IW7 B-day Bash and Expo!

Second Life's Birthday events are noted for their huge cake stages built on the corners of four sims. The IW7 didn't have that, but did have a "Cake Maze."

Among the other open-ended virtual worlds, InWorldz ranks the second largest in terms of active users and accounts, reaching 100,000 in May 2014. It's numbers had been boosted by Second Life residents taking greater interest in the place in 2013 during the content creator rights controversy. Attention from the Newser has waned somewhat since those days. But we still check there once in a while, for big events such as these.

To see the exhibits, once logged into InWorldz, head to the sim InWorldz Events Scenic 21 (127, 129, 20)

Bixyl Shuftan

Press Release: Roleplay for Life

The Roleplay for Life team consists of multiple roleplay sim communities representing many genres.  Roleplayers as a whole are very "COMMUNITY" focused and are a natural fit for raising money for this worthy cause.

In 2014, I decided we needed our own team for Relay For Life to focus our charitable efforts in virtual worlds where we all spend a lot of time.  We all joined to form the Roleplay for Life group for many of the typical reasons groups join Relay for Life: it's a great, noble cause; because we know someone who has been affected by cancer; and to affect positive change in our community.

We also hoped to use our unique connection with roleplayers, who often tend to be a "fringe category" of player, to raise mutual awareness between the various charities and the roleplaying community within InWorldz. We felt our involvement in Relay for Life benefits not only a wonderful cause, but also benefits those who may feel removed from the mainstream, but wish to become more involved in such events.

We raised over $285,000 Iz's during the 2014 RFL season to help raise money and awareness for cancer and its cure. Our goal in the 2015 season is to exceed that total through the hard work of our team members and the generosity of the InWorldz residents.

Bim Rasmuson, Captain
Roleplay For Life
RFL InWorldz 2015 Campaign

InWorldz Celebrates Six Years

While Second Life was holding a number of April Fools parties, such as the one at Club Cutlass, The virtual world of InWorldz had officially turned six years old yesterday on April 1st. While much has continued to happen here, not much gets reported in the Newser as Second Life continues to be so active.

Today marks the final day for official events, the theme being "Then and Now", though the exhibits will remain for a few days longer.

One can find a map of the InWorldz sims involved: (here).

InWorldz's Sixth Birthday Coming Soon

InWorldz, the second largest virtual world, will soon be celebrating it's sixth anniversary. Already, volunteers are setting up builds at the celebration grounds, and a schedule of events is being filled, what's currently slotted listen in the InWorldz forums. April 1 will be the biggest day of the celebrations. Daniel Voyager writes, "Apparently there will be contests and other fun activities throughout April and May on the grid of InWorldz to celebrate six years." This year's theme is "Then and Now."

New Sponsor: M&M Creations

Longtime readers from our predecessor publication Second Life Newspaper may remember their big sponsor over time was M&M Creations, 10 and Marcthur Gooson. Not only have these expert content creators build a number of high-quality objects for Second Life residents over the years, one can use their scuplts and textures in their own builds (contact them before making items intended as freebies or for sale), plus they have offered classes and tutorials on building. As the years have gone by, their wares have expended to include mesh, and more recently fitted mesh. Besides Second Life, they have taken their talents to InWorldz and Spot-On 3D.

It is with great pleasure that we announce that M&M Creations has decided to help sponsor Second Life Newser. We look forward to informing the Grid once again about their quality products.

Website: http://www.doublemcreations.org/ 

Second Life location: DoubleMM (179/77/76)

InWorldz location: DoubleMM (173/180/82)

Second Life Marketplace: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/9798

Shop: (link)

Press Release: The Love of IWZ Art

Starting 1st February through to 14th February 2015 InWorldz will be hosting the 2015 Art Festival. The theme is The Love of IWZ Art. This is a great chance to share your love art with the rest of the InWorldz community. All welcome to attend the event and if you are interested then join the InWorldz Events Committee group.

The event will be held on four InWorldz event sims and the areas will be set to PG. The event team are looking for novice to the most talented people on the grid. The event team are looking for 3D art (prim, Sculpt or Mesh), 2D Art (photography, oil, graphic art), Twisted and Torched Art this year. Apparently there will be 2500 prims allowed and the area is set to a 30 x 30 plot. If you need more space please IM either quadrapop Tree or Moontan Valeeva.

If you are interested in taking part then send in your application on or before 18th January 2015. The plot assignment areas will be sent out on or before 24th January 2015.

Contact Quadrapop Tree, Moontan Valeeva, EC or Jeri Rahja if you have any questions on the InWorldz grid.

Hat tip: Daniel Voyager

InWorldz Announces $6,500 USD to be Donated to Toys For Tots

Following it's success with it's $30,000 raised in Second Life a few weeks ago (a total that has gone up to almost $38,000), Toys For Tots held another fundraiser in the InWorldz grid. Yesterday it was announced in the forums by Elenia Llewellyn, one of the founders of InWorldz, that following their own donation to the funds already raised by volunteers, the total amount had risen to $6518.86, "our largest donation to Toys for Tots to date."



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Elenia stated much of their donation came from the owners of a historical roleplay sim that caused a stir among some in InWorldz but the founders continued to allow them to stay. The owner of the sim eventually decided to close and head elsewhere in Opensim, but gave the founders the money that would have gone to  tier for sticking by them.

Funds will continue to be accepted by the kiosks until 11PM PST December 24. The exhibits should be up for a few more days afterwards.

Hat Tip: Bain Finch

Bixyl Shuftan

Press Release: Tuna Oddfellow to Perform in InWorldz "Fright Fest" Saturday

Fright Fest '14 has something for everyone!  Tuna Oddfellow has been blowing minds since 2007 with the indescribable ambiance of his psychedelic Odd Balls.  You just have to see it to believe it!  We are very excited to announce that he will present a Witches Night performance at his Fright Fest Odd Ball Stage on Satuday Oct 25, beginning at Noon IWT (pacific) and a second show at 6 PM IWT (pacific).

Each show will last for 2 hours hope to see you there.

Relay For Life in InWorldz Passes One Million Izs Raised

About a week ago, it was announced that the Relay For Line in InWorldz had passed a milestone. It's fundraising totals for the 2014 season had passed the one million InWorldz dollars, or "Izzies," raised.

The "Relay for Life in InWorldz" webpage listed the following totals:

Team 1

General Account

Iz$362,427

Team 2

Fashion for Life

Iz$166,961

Team 3

Tiny Steps for a Cure

Iz$307,200

Team 4

Tri Group Team

Iz$30,811

Team 5

Roleplay for Life

Iz$187,693

Team 6

Tsuki Mura for Hope

Iz$76,539

Team 7

Dragons for Life

Iz$8,040

Total raised

Iz$1,139,671

"Izzies" are worth about half of what a Linden Dollar is worth. So while the total is smaller than the Relay for Life in Second Life, it's been growing. Last year the RFL in IW raised 325,000 InWorldz dollars (worth about 162,500 Lindens). The RFL in IW will go on to its own Relay Weekend on November 1.

This year, the Relay for Life in Second Life raised $415,422 US dollars for it's 2014 season.

Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

Relay for Life in InWorldz Season Starts August 23

Just as the Relay for Life is winding down in Second Life, it's just starting in the virtual world of InWorldz.

We are so excited about this 3^rd season of Relay For Life of InWorldz with the theme of A Future Without Cancer and all the changes we has been working on. Let me take you on a quick walk through.

We will be kicking off the season on August 23^rd at the new home of Relay For Life of InWorldz on Muse Island at 9am IWT. If you have not seen Muse Island yet, I urge you to stop by and enjoy a beautiful sim. http://places.inworldz.com/Muse%20Island/74/87/22

This will be the third Relay season on the InWorldz Grid. Major events include the Fashion for Life from Sept 20 to 27, which already has several groups having joined, and the Jobs and Sevices Fair, where merchants and clubs can go look for help and musicians, builders, and others can show off their skills. The main event will be on November 1, which will go on from 9AM to 9PM InWorldz (and SL) time.

Last year the RFL in IW raised 325,000 InWorldz dollars (worth about 162,500 Lindens)

For more information check the Relay For Life in  InWorldz blog at: http://rflofiw.blogspot.com/ .