I've recently thought about how the #Fediverse, when it comes to accounts and instance-hopping, compares with the #Hypergrid of #OpenSimulator, when it comes to #avatars and grid-hopping.

It happens in both cases. You have to start somewhere. In both cases, it's hard to know if the place you're signing up on is good or not. It's actually even harder to know in #OpenSim because you can't look into a #grid, its community and what else it has to offer through a Web browser. Or if you can, it's through the grid's website if it has one, and such websites are never critical for obvious reasons.

So you have to jump into cold water and look around afterwards. It's much easier from within, and you can see more from within. You can see greener pastures from within. And you move to these greener pastures by creating a new user account there. Unlike #SecondLife, you can make new avatars with the same name as your old one, namely one per grid.

Okay, the first difference is that OpenSim doesn't let you transfer your whole inventory, your friends, your groups etc. from one #avatar to another. Technical limitations. Bugger. But that isn't what I wanted to talk about.

The second difference is what'll happen to your old account/avatar. In the Fediverse, you usually abandon your old account. #Hubzilla and #Streams are exceptions with their #NomadicIdentity: You have a new account, but you still have the same channel, the same identity, and you just make one an identical clone of the other one, always kept in-sync.

On the Hypergrid, you may abandon your old avatar as well. But so much I can tell you: You're more likely to keep it as an alt, just in case. Technically speaking, your new avatar is your alt until you declare it your main. Some users have avatars with the same name, sometimes even the same look, on one or a few dozen grids, and they keep coming back to them.

Another difference is that most new Fediverse accounts are created as new main, all-purpose accounts. As I've said already, if someone already has an account, it'll end up abandoned. In OpenSim, in contrast, people often create new avatars with the same name even if they don't plan to move somewhere else. These new avatars are intended to stay alts for special purposes.

By the way, the Hypergrid has something that's kind of akin to mastodon.social on #Mastodon, a primary "lighthouse" grid. And that's #OSgrid, the biggest and oldest of all grids with the most active users and the most registered avatars. This grid alone has a bigger landmass than Second Life which is only possible because it only hosts its official sims itself, and all sims not run by the admins are hosted by the users and attached.

Just like mastodon.social, OSgrid is the place where new users are the most likely to arrive. And, again, they're likely to move elsewhere in both cases, once they've found out what exists elsewhere. But while mastodon.social is chock-full of abandoned accounts, OSgrid is chock-full of older (and newer) avatars kept on the backburner as alts. OSgrid is great for alts. Since it's so big, it's neutral, and other grids can't afford to block it.

So on the one hand, I find it kind of dumb how masses of people are being sent from Twitter straight to mastodon.social as if there's nowhere else to go in the Fediverse.

On the other hand, I don't have a problem with OpenSim newbies making their first avatar on OSgrid. You'll probably have an alt on OSgrid sooner or later anyway.

#Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Alts

Technology futurists: In #TheMetaverse, everyone will have an #avatar.

#OpenSim users already now: What do you mean, there are users with fewer than three #avatars?

#OpenSimulator #Metaverse #VirtualWorlds #Alts