Islandz Discord Server Taken Down, Questions and Comments Continue

Sometime yesterday on Monday January 28, the Discord channel for Islandz was shut down. On Saturday, Elenia Llewellyn (Beth Reischl) announced that the virtual world, which was set up in November as the replacement grid for Inworldz, was closing down due to her running out of money. While there are articles about Elenia's announcement, such as the Newser's, the announcement itself and the following comments are gone.

The Inworldz Disporia Discord group ( https://discord.gg/aTDyn9U ) that was set up before the closing of the virtual world in July 2018, remains up. And numerous comments have been coming in. Many are angry and upset, such as content creators who never game permission for the goods they designed not to be used outside InWorldz who were unhappy to hear about Elenia deciding she would send back the items residents saved in OARs without going through them to see which content had the okay to use elsewhere and which didn't. But their options are limited as a lawsuit would require hiring a lawyer, and Elenia has stated she's broke and has no cash to give as compensation.

The impending closure of Islandz has brought back the sad memories of former residents of InWorldz when that grid closed in July 2018, as well as reviving discussion of why it closed. Elenia had stated that she had taken out a loan to keep the grid running, though claimed something went wrong in repaying the lender despite having the funds to do so. No one else on the team at the time seems to have been told this decision. Exactly how this came to be is only speculation, though one can guess the departure of certain members of the team that helped Elenia keep it running over the years, things went downhill. With the confusion and questions surrounding the closure, and doubts following it, only a fraction of InWorldz's users chose to move to the new grid to make their virtual home. Some people who kept the faith in the owner did move in, and Jim Tarber did join in to help out despite his earlier talk of staying out. But it wasn't enough. Instead of a new beginning, it was a sad last chapter.

Hypergrid Business, as well as Ryan Schultz and Daniel Voyager have also written about the closure of Islandz. Some people have also left comments. While Elenia may have left virtual worlds, it's fair to say the discussion of what she left behind will be talked about for a little longer.

Bixyl Shuftan

Islandz, Successor Grid to Inworldz, Closing Down

Following the closing of the InWorldz grid in July 2018, once second only in Second Life in size among open-ended virtual worlds, there were hopes among many of it's residents that Beth Reischl (Elenia Llewellyn) would get a new grid up and running. Finally on November 14, her new virtual world Islandz was online and open to all, especially former residents. Over time, some of InWorldz' residents moved in, and the grid grew slowly, eventually encompassing a few dozen sims.

Then on Saturday, Elenia dropped a bombshell. Islandz would soon be closing as she had run out of money to the point of being about to lose her home.


I'm just going to throw this out there now... the grid is not sustainable. We knew what our break even point was, we're not even remotely close. I'm being evicted from my home, my date of move out is Feb. 11. My mother is about to be evicted from her home because I'm working up here so they hiked her rent up as it's the same landlady. My phone is completely shut off. I have no electricity, hence why I'm up by my Mother's condo during the day. I've tried to sell my motorcycle in the States to no avail as it's not riding season.

People are disheartened at the lack of content we could restore, and I don't blame them
So, this is where we are at right now.

I woke up at 7 am trying to figure out the best way to say all this and I'm just beyond stressed, depressed and disheartened at this point.

Elenia stated she had kept things going about as long as she could, "That is where I'm at right now. I'm tired of crying every day, tired of stressing every day. ... I'm maxed out, in every way shape and form. ... I can't do this fight anymore. I have cried myself to sleep more times this past month than I care to admit to." Of the OARs content files, as she had to concentrate on her real-life family's needs, she didn't have the time to go through them to determine which content the creators had given their okay to use outside InWorldz and which didn't, "so I will simply email them out. ... no matter what I do, some of you will not be happy. ... I'd LOVE to give you all filtered oars, really, but I can't."

The response was some people upset that once again their grid was closing, plus content creators upset that their protection was gone. Elina thanked her fans for their continuing support over the months, "you guys have been great, seriously." To those who were upset at her, "I'm done with the metaverse. ... I have zero, zilch, zip, nada, just maxed out credit cards. ... I'm done. I have literally lost everything. Sorry if you all don't get that." After about an hour, Elenia made her last comment.

Over the weekend, people would continue to comment in Discord chat. Some were confused, "can someone tell me please what is going on, the only thing I read when I scroll back is that a lot of ppl are upset." Some were upset, "I am a consumer who was screwed royally." But there were many comments expressing sadness with little or no anger over their home closing once more and sadness for Elina's financial state. "Give Ele time to get over the emotion of what she told us today. It's a harder blow for her than for any of us." "This is very sad news. I have the greatest respect and admiration for Jim and Ele for fighting like lions to get Islandz up and running. I have the greatest respect for all the people I have met in Islandz who worked like Trojans to provide us all with free content. I have nothing but respect for all the selfless work done by so many here. It has been an amazing community and I am proud to have known you all." "My heart goes out to you Jim Tarber  and especially to Elenia. You have both moved heaven and earth to try to bring us back all together in Islandz. I appreciate all the months of hard work, sweat and tears you have put in. You both have my full respect for what you have done so far and tried to accomplish FOR ALL OF US."

Jim Tarber told people not to start another Gofundme to keep the grid afloat. He would go on to say, "I actually had a plan after IW shutdown to just fire up a couple of recovery servers and provide filtered OAR exports for folks for other grids. I didn't think it was realistic to try to recover everything on a new grid, with all the legal and ethical headaches (and costs) associated with that.  In hindsight, that would have saved a lot of trouble. However, Ele was so moved by the support of the community that she decided to try anyway. I'll give her credit for continuing when I didn't think it possible. But the real world has finally caught up."

There is some talk of a final farewell party. But unlike the last days of InWorldz, there is no talk of a successor grid. The only options are to choose between the Opensim worlds, or perhaps somewhere else like VRChat, Sansar, and of course Second Life. As for Elenia Llewellyn/Beth Reischl, it looks like sadly this will be the last we hear of her, at least for a long time.

Hat tip: Oldesoul Eldemar

Bixyl Shuftan

A Virtual Traveller Speaks On The Split Future of InWorldz's Residents

It was last week that Islandz, the virtual world created by the Inworldz team following the closure of their previous virtual world in July, came online. A number of InWorldz's old residents promptly headed over to log on. But the question remains: will the new virtual world recover the numbers of it's predecessor. Bain Finch didn't think so. While we at the Newser know Bain best for his being part of the Relay for Life in Second Life, he's also been in InWorldz and other places. He made the following commentary on Facebook about where the residents of InWorldz would go.


Islandz will never be the size of InWorldz for a simple reason. The existing residents of InWorldz is forever fractured into two main camps. Those that will not go back and those that will. And of those that will, that camp further broken down into two, those that will check it out but not 'home' there, and those that will make Islandz their primary (virtual world).

The other wave that happened, many of the other ranking open sims, benefited by the exodus. All the grids that are benefiting by the hyper connectivity to facilitate grid hopping, will drive the development cross grid technology for security and commerce. And there is a new focus in those directions, with the addition of all these new residents. Just taking the combined total of residents on all the hyper connected grids, is I'm guessing, is now a rather large population, taking the uniqueness of the individual and not duplicate accounts on multiple grids, into account. Then add to the mix, new open sim grids, such as Infinity further dipping into the pool of people. Many of the grid have registered spikes in new residents, the open sim market place also noted a huge spike in sales, and people are not going to walk away from those investments.

And then, there is all the whispers, one hears on the song of birds, of things in the works, in far away rooms. So in the end, what will have happened, people that enjoy virtual life, will have several options. Life in the big city of SL, or the small town feel or themed community, of a bunch of smaller girds. A few will be closed grids that will require separate logins, but would offer unique benefits, the inter connected, hyper open sim, can't do.

The friendships, that was established in InWorldz, will mature all these grid together, and a good many folks will explore across many grids and be involved on those grids. Sounds like fun to me.


So despite the disporia, Bain feels everything will work out for the better for the former residents of InWorldz, and other residents of virtual worlds.

What do you the readers think? Feel free to comment below.

InWorldz' Sucessor Islandz Comes Online

On July 27, the virtual world on Inworldz shut down. Beth Reischl (Elenia Llewellyn) had promised that a new grid would arise. After almost four months, it arrived. The Islandz virtual grid was open to the former residents of the virtual world on November 14 at 3PM. Elenia had a message for the former residents of the closed virtual world whom had anxiously awaited the new one.

Well, it's taken a while, but we've finally managed to get to the point where we can open our doors to show our residents that we are indeed alive and well! 

First, let me thank everyone for their hard work, their patience and their determination to help us see this through. Without you, we would never have gotten this far! I've watched our community be absolutely amazing, stunning, graceful, patient and so helpful to the myriad of questions from so many.

To begin with, former Inworldz residents should not start new accounts, but login with their old account names and passwords at https://app.islandzvw.com/account. Once they successfully log in on the website, then they can try logging in the virtual world via the viewer, which can be downloaded at https://islandzvw.com/download.php.

For those expecting to appear as what they looked like in Inworldz, they will be in for a disappointment as they appear in the Welcome Area. With inventories completely empty, they won't have so much as a "Ruth" avatar, appearing as a cloud. There are some freebie avatars, clothes, and accessories nearby, so you can at least have a newbie look. But the OARS, or the items residents left at sandboxes to save, are not around yet. There's also only a few sims accessible for most residents.

And so, the success to Inworldz is finally online. How well it does at making the residents of it's predecessor happy, and how successful it is as a virtual world, will take many weeks, probably months, to figure out.

Bixyl Shuftan

Logo Chosen For InWorldz's Successor Islandz

While development on Islandz, the successor of the closed virtual world InWorldz, continues, there is a little news. They now have a logo. It shows the letters big and bold, with an outline of a palm tree and a fish. There's also a wooden sign with the letters "Virtual World," in front of tropical plant leaves.

Earlier on the Islandz Discord chat, it was announced three logos were being considered, and opinions on which was best were welcome. The one that eventually was chosen got complements from several people. When I asked if this was now going to be the logo, I was told this was most likely it, though there is the possibility of a small change or two.

Also, it looks like there will be no need for former residents of InWorldz to register new accounts on Islandz. They should be able to use their old account names and passwords when it opens.

No date for the opening of Islandz has yet been set, official or closed beta, has been set.

Bixyl Shuftan

"Islandz" To Be Name of Inworldz's Successor, Other OpenSim News

It seems a new name has been picked for InWorldz's successor. On the Discord group of the now-defunct virtual world, it was announced that the name of the future grid of it's owners will be called "Islandz."

There's little more information about the new world. As of the writing of this article, they have yet to get a webpage for it, although that is likely to soon change. The name of the Discord group has been changed to that of the planned grid. The website of InWorldz itself went down almost two weeks ago. Beth Reischl/Elenia did say on Sunday August 19 that she "started setup for Database recovery this morning. ... As soon as we have Database backup ... we can work on the OARS" There has been no date set for the opening of Islandz.

Other developments in OpenSim include Han Held announcing that this year's Avatarfest would be the last one.  There was an announcement on the Kitely grid's blog that it's marketplace sales have gone up 300% since the folding of InWorldz, a clear sign that many former InWorldz residents have moved there. The announcement also hinted at similar gains by Digiworldz and Discovery.

Artwork by SimonaStick Judy 

Source: Hyperrid Business  , Kitely,

Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan