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

Avination Virtual World Closes

Some sad news for virtual world fans, especially advocates of OpenSim. Avination, which used to be one of the largest alternative worlds to Second Life, has shut down after being offline for months. The company of the same name behind the world went bankrupt on March 7.

According to an article by in Hypergrid Business, Melanie Thielker, the owner of Avination, stated that there was hope that users of the grid could see their builds and inventories again. But since the company behind the grid was bankrupt, all the money was gone. In the comments following the article, Thielker stated, "The grid itself isn't dead. The grid is it's users and it's content, not a name or some servers. We have found a way to be able to offer the Avination experience, just not under that name and not with me as the top dog. Stay tuned, after the weekend there will be some info on the old Avination website address."

A look at the Avination website had no links to other pages. The blog and forum were apparently gone. Just a message stating, "The name Avination is going away. Your avatars and sims will soon be available again. A grid is more than a name. We have realized this and are working to restore what made this grid the fun place it used to be. We are currently in the process of negotiating a merger. Please stay tuned for more information as talks develop."

After Avination went online in 2010, it quickly gained a following of about 9,000 active users a month in April 2011, rising faster than InWorldz, which went online at about the same time, though never did come remotely close to Second Life's numbers. When I visited the world in it's first anniversary celebrations, things were looking well. Inara Pey of Modem World would also write about her experience there, feeling although the place wasn't as well known as InWorldz it showed promise.

But then the grid was hit with severe setbacks. Later in 2011, criminals used stolen credit card numbers to buy up $126,000 USD worth of virtual currency from Avination, which it had to pay back. This would happen again in 2015. Both instances wiped out the savings of the company behind the grid and left it in debt, or "gutted like a fish" as Thielker put it. The number of active accounts would plummet, and the number of sims would drop as well. Also in 2015, Linden Lab's lawyers ordered Avination to stop trading Linden dollars directly for it's own currency. By January 2016, it had only around 1000 active users a month.

Then disaster struck. In the summer of 2016, Avination suffered a "catastrophic data loss" that took the grid offline. Thielker would look for a new hosting provider to house the grid, but never found one. Finally it was decided Avination was just too far gone to save, "We allowed the company to lapse because of the damage to the name Avination."

And so, one of the better known alternatives to Second Life is no more, at least for now. Though even if it does come back, the tiny numbers of "There" are not a good sign for what future Avination might have.

Source: Hypergrid Business.

Bixyl Shuftan

SLN Archives: BNT Bankrupt 53 Sims Offline ( October 2009)

With the anniversary of the Newser less than a month away, Second Life Newser will be reprinting a few of the stories of it's predecessor, Second Life Newspaper. One event that was important both in terms of it's impact on residents and the paper itself was the bankruptcy of BNT holdings in October 2009. Over fifty residential sims were lost, and their residents had to find new places to live. For James and Dana's SLN, meant the loss of their own home as well as the paper's office and their sponsor.

Read Dana's reprinted article, and additional commentary by Bixyl Shuftan, in Extra.