Great Canadian Grid Owner Announces Closure

In December, the Great Canadian Grid, an Opensim world, went offline. The reason was a dispute between it's owner, Roddie Macchi, and that of Digiworldz's, Terry Ford, which handled the other grid's management services. Macchi started a Gofundme to raise money to get it going. But it was not enough. On the grid's webpage, Macchi has announced the Great Canadian Grid will be closing for good.

I enjoyed my virtual travels and managing GCG in the last 7 years. But it is time to move on.

Since GCG started out as a hobby I decided not to sell the grid but to close it permanently.


Machi went on to say those people who had a place on his grid could get the oars from gevolutionworld.com, "I have made arrangements with Cliff Hopkins aka Shadow to be sure to hand over only those whose names were owners ... He has an entire list of who owns what, and if successful on the corrupted database ... he may also be able to retrieve your .iars." Machi stated he no longer had the database, as "the new hosting company maintains it in their servers," so people would have to contact gevolutionworld.com.


I hope you all find your way and enjoy the opensim world like i did.

Thank you all for supporting GCG and me,

Roddie Macchi

The final line was another swipe at Ford and Digiworldz, whom he has blamed for the grid's closure.

There's been a great deal of chatter on the "Hypergrid Explorers and Creators" Discord thread (link) in the "Great Canadian Grid" channel. "The level of drama in OpenSim just boggles the mind." "Well so much for being nice on opensim. ... time to ruin hypergrid." "i seen this from the very beginning when he started begging for money .. having folks pay tier ahead of time and the go fund me ?? i feel for each and every one of you .. its like a old Inworldz nightmare all over again." One person was particuarly angry, accusing Macchi of stealing his virtual property. It was also stated that the recovery effort of the grid had been 70 percent complete when Macchi made the announcement, and due to accusations of theft the handing over of oars files would be suspended.

And so, another virtual world fades away.

Bixyl Shuftan

Second Norway In Trouble, Economic Effects of Coronavirus Blamed

Sad news. It appears the Second Norway area, the easternmost part of the Blake Sea could be closed soon. The Newser was tipped by a user on Facebook, Karasu Ravinbyrd Tori, whom stated she received the following notice in one of her groups.

I am sorry to inform that due to year of deficit and the current corona crisis, job loss and failing krone exchange rate, Ey Ren are no longer able to keep the ship afloat. LL has closed his account. Ey has contacted LL and the other owners of Blake Sea in hopes of reaching an agreement for further existence of SN and SCE. Make sure that you pick up your no copy objects. I don't know the timeframe when the region goes offline. Unfortunately, I have no more information at this time.

Checking the Second Norway group, there was a similar notice:

Hello everyone, as you might have heard the SN estate is closing. This is mainly due to the current financial situation you see all around now a days. The owner is in contact with LL and other estate owner around to see if there is a possibility to keep some regions down in SCE, We do not have an exact time frame when things will go down yet. We will give out more information as we learn it.

I would like to thank everyone who has rented and enjoyed the estate, we have had a blast hosting

As it turns out, the value of Norway's currency has gone down quite a bit in the past few months. According to Wikipedia, "as of October 2019 is worth about 9 NOK. During the corona crisis 2020, the NOK fell heavily, making one USD cost 12.00 NOK on 19 March 2020."

Second Norway is located at the east end of the Blake Sea area, consisting of a little more than forty sims.

Tori wondered that it might not belong before there would soon be more estates closing, "My advice is... DO NOT pay your tier more than a week or two ahead at a time so as to cut your potential losses if they tank on you." With the shutdowns around the world due to the Coronavirus, with people out of work and businesses closed, this very well could start to happen in places in which the owner was already in trouble or didn't plan ahead.

Bixyl Shuftan

Announcement: Yosemite Sim Closure Takedown Schedule

Hey folks, here is a copy of the takedown schedule for which areas of Yosemite Sim will be taken down, on which day, and in which order. This is so that you can best plan your remaining visits prior to the closing date on July 29th. Thank you for all your supportive messages during the past few weeks. It means a lot to me. ♥

On Thursday, July 26th:

1. Maganda Arts (Mainstore, Maganda Homes, and Maganda Cafe)
2. Little Yosemite Art Forest
3. Admin Areas (non-public)

On Friday, July 27th:

4. Shinzen Japanese Garden
5. Little Yosemite Valley
6. Keao's Crystal Ballroom

On Saturday, July 28th:

7. Yosemite Village Stores
8. Shinzen Garden Village
9. Little Yosemite Cabins (Meadow Cabins)
10. Landing Zone and Lantern Point (Forest Cabins)
11. Bluefield Wildflower Meadows (Stone Cabins)

On Sunday, July 29th:

12. Main Park (Forever Wild, Base Jumping, Visitor Center, John Muir Campground, The Gazebo, Mariposa Grove, and Tuolumne Meadows)

Jadyn Firehawk