Avination fuck-ups

This morning, neither Maggie nor me could log in to our home sim Sweet Hideout. I didn't think very much about it, since it happens every now and then, and I had planned to spend my day in our own sim BDSM building anyway. I finally got the planned BDSM art maze done, and a new model for the swimming pool at the to-be club area, plus a helicopter ramp at the big light-house tower. Maggie kept working with our skybox home meanwhile.

In the evening, I was contacted by another shop-owner in Sweet Hideout, who wondered why Sweet Hideout was off-line. I tried a restart of the sim, but then discovered that it was entirely gone, even from map interfaces. I started with checking my bills, but they were paid in due order to keep Sweet Hideout going until the end of July. Also, the sister sim, Sweet Retreat, which I also pay for and which would expire earlier, was still online. I sent in a support ticket about it and hope this is just a technical glitch or mistake that will be quickly fixed.

Maggie actually got more upset over it than I did, and I can't blame her. Suddenly having your home, and all the things you have there, wiped from the map is no fun at all. It makes you wonder if it's really worth putting efforts into our own sim, if that one can just disappear over night as well.

Economy:
2011-07-01: -
Avination stats:
2011-07-02 04:15 UTC, 33,709 residents, 6,903 in 30d, 973 sims

Showing things done

This morning, I spent chatting with Maggie in bed. In the evening, she came a bit late, but we also met Lena, and she showed us the home she created in the house Maggie gave her. It was really very nice, with clever furniture and tasteful shibari artworks as decoration. Lena had also added some BDSM poses into her bed, besides the ordinary sleeping variant. She really is talented.

After Lena had to leave, Maggie wanted to see the finished dungeon. I showed it to her, and she wanted to try the devices I put there. She said she liked it, so I hope any visitors to the island will too, once we open up to public.

Before I met Maggie in the evening, I kind of blew my top on the Avination forums. There's that guy there who is so smug, and who got really rude against someone who just asked if it was true that an ex Emerald developer was working on the Avination viewer. I had planned to not destroy people's joy over all the whistles and bells the new viewer brought, even if I myself won't touch it with that rogue developer from Emerald involved in it. But I couldn't help but hitting that guy on the forum pretty hard with the facts he tried to ridicule. I guess I won't be the most popular guy around after it, but I guess I can live with that. The question is if Avination can survive the utterly stupid decision to bring that rogue developer on board.

Economy:
2011-06-22: uploads -C$30
Avination stats:
2011-06-23 04:15 UTC, 33,011 residents, 7,255 in 30d, 987 sims

Whistles and bells

Yesterday, Maggie and me lay cuddling and playing some in bed in the morning. In the evening, I logged into Second Life for the first time in weeks, to check some of my creations there to try and re-create them in Avination. I got the prim part of them done, even if it took a while longer than planned, owing to a dear friend keeping me.

This morning, Maggie and me chatted about various things in the morning. In the evening, I finalized my old creations from Second Life regarding scripts and animations as well, while Maggie played around some with a sky box I created for her, creating an astounding atmosphere there. I think I'm about done with the dungeon part for now, after placing my "new" devices in the cells and common play area there. It looks pretty well equipped, and I hope people will find it exciting enough to try a few things out there, once we open the sim to public.

Today I also found out Avination released a new version of the viewer. The first comments about it was overwhelmingly positive, even if a few bugs were found as well. Looking at the release notes, it seems to be mostly whistles and bells though, and not so much really improved functionality. Also, considering the track record of the creator of it, concerning griefing, copybot building, spyware, stalking and harassment, I'm afraid the new version and future versions of the viewer are dead to me. In the end it will probably mean me giving up Avination as well, since I guess the old viewer I'm using now will become impossible to use as development proceeds on viewer and servers in parallel.

I have commitments in Avination until the end of August though, so unless things deteriorate too much inworld, I'll try and hang on until then. I've already talked with Maggie about the turn things have taken, and I think she will be OK if we leave Avination for some other virtual world. Considering the options, it looks like the only realistic alternative for me now will be to swallow my pride and crawl back to Second Life if so.

Economy:
2011-06-20: -
2011-06-21: uploads -C$70
Avination stats:
2011-06-21 04:14 UTC, 32,869 residents, 7,382 in 30d, 1,000 sims
2011-06-22 04:14 UTC, 32,945 residents, 7,337 in 30d, 995 sims

A huge lighthouse

To keep things simple with Maggie's helicopter circling the BDSM island, I built a tower in Doric style this morning, as a kind of "station" at altitude for it. In the afternoon, I modified it some, and added a large fire bowl on its top, making it kind of an ancient lighthouse. The view from there, as well as from the circling helicopters, is great, and I think that it can become a popular attraction on the island. I also cleaned up some in the dungeon, added the new dildo pole I finished yesterday to all the cells and the common dungeon area as well, and added image holders both to the tower and in the to-be art maze.

Later in the evening, Maggie brought me to a place selling houses, garden furniture and full set pools. She was much after the pool furniture, but was almost jumping up and down from wanting the pool itself. I have already been planning for a pool at the to-be club area, but these pools were large. However, if they're mod as it says, I should be able to fix both its size and its looks, to make it fit and blend in better in the environment. We will wait with buying until tomorrow though, to melt and ponder some on it.

Economy:
2011-06-18: uploads -C$550
Avination stats:
2011-06-19 04:14 UTC, 32,633 residents, 7,397 in 30d, 1,006 sims

Dungeon taking shape

This morning, I finalized the last type of cage for the dungeon, a rather wicked one, and let Maggie test it. In the evening, I created a cell door that permits people to lease the key, to have exclusive control over the door and thereby cell. It's not really to make money, since I set the lease quite low, but more a convenient way of offering people the possibility and reducing the risk of it being abused. I then installed the created equipment in all 4 cells in the dungeon. There still are a few more things to re-create and add, but I think that will be comparatively easy.

I also helped Maggie with a cart she's trying to make, for her to pull. I found some critical values for parameters to make it work, but it still messes up some, so it needs more tweaking and experimentation.

Economy:
2011-06-16: uploads -C$30
Avination stats:
2011-06-17 04:17 UTC, 32,325 residents, 7,357 in 30d, 1,002 sims

More toys finished

Tuesday morning, I sneaked into Second Life, to rezz a couple of creations I made there and refresh my memory on how they were created. I made new versions, not identical but hopefully improved, of a whipping machine and a cell for the dungeon, and also got the scripts in the whipping machine working after some tweaking. When Maggie showed up, we spent the time just chatting about things in general.

Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, I was occupied real-life, and couldn't come to Avination. Wednesday evening, I found time to finish a few of the cages as well, while Maggie was busy prettifying the sim. This morning, Maggie and me just chatted some. In the evening, Lena was there, and we chatted some, the three of us. After Lena left, Maggie and I just relaxed some together before bedtime.

I also found some time to start a project of mapping Avination, more in economic terms than geographical. I managed to track some 97% of the sims in Avination through the map interface offered, getting a clue of distribution and ownership for them. Some 80% of them are located within 100 "squares" from the grid center at position X=1000, Y=1000. There is one really big land owner, and then a handful of semi-big ones, but most of the sims are owned by people who only have one or two sims. I'll add more as I find time to analyse the data better, and present it in a good way.

Economy:
2011-06-13: upload -C$40
2011-06-14: upload -C$10
2011-06-15: upload -C$30
Avination stats:
2011-06-14 04:16 UTC, 31,849 residents, 7,337 in 30d, 1,007 sims
2011-06-15 04:17 UTC, 32,013 residents, 7,355 in 30d, 1,003 sims
2011-06-16 04:17 UTC, 32,175 residents, 7,348 in 30d, 1,003 sims

Stagnation

I haven't been in the mood to do much in Avination lately, owing to real life happenings. What time I've spent there, I've mainly spent with Maggie chatting and playing, and almost nothing on building. I managed to create a simple show sailing boat, and also help Maggie some with a couple of her projects.

I guess part of it is that I'm becoming more and more hesitant to if Avination will survive even until the end of this year, looking at the development of the economic data for it. That makes it hard to motivate spending a lot of time creating things that will be of no good in the end. Hopefully it's just part of my general down mood at present though.

Economy:
2011-06-09: tier -C$600
2011-06-10: -
2011-06-11: upload -C$10
Avination stats:
2011-06-10 04:15 UTC, 31,408 residents, 7,461 in 30d, 1,010 sims
2011-06-11 04:15 UTC, 31,497 residents, 7,399 in 30d, 1,007 sims
2011-06-12 04:15 UTC, 31,576 residents, 7,352 in 30d, 1,010 sims

Real life interference

Some sad real life happenings have prevented me from visiting Avination for a few days, but today I was there as usual, although not in the best of moods. Maggie and I spent the morning chatting, and in the evening she showed me what she and Lena had built while I was gone. Maggie has prettified the sim BDSM quite some more and created a new hammock, while Lena had built a pretty naughty seesaw toy. Those two girls seem to like each other quite some, and I'm glad for that.

Economy:
2011-06-05: -
2011-06-06: rock and grass -C$275
2011-06-07: -
2011-06-08: -
Avination stats:
2011-06-06 04:18 UTC, 30,890 residents, 7,531 in 30d, 1,027 sims
2011-06-07 04:18 UTC, 30,988 residents, 7,468 in 30d, 1,020 sims
2011-06-08 04:15 UTC, 31,066 residents, 7,437 in 30d, 1,013 sims
2011-06-09 04:15 UTC, 31,235 residents, 7,405 in 30d, 1,013 sims

Trouble shooting

This morning, I logged in to find Maggie and Lena at our house. Lena actually left so quickly I didn't see her, but Maggie told me she had been there. Maggie and me then had a long talk about the relationship between the three of us. We both like Lena a lot, but there are some quirks that needs to be straightened out.

In the afternoon, I had a long chat with Lena as well, and I think that both opened up some between her and me, as well as giving her the security of knowing what goes around the three of us. I then tried to fix one of my devices, without much progress. When Maggie showed up in the evening, she and Lena had a long talk again, while Lena demonstrated her latest creations to Maggie. Damn, that girl is good at design and scripting!

At the end of the evening, Maggie wanted to spend the night in the half-finished dungeon, so I left her there and headed home for our bed in Sweet Hideout alone.

Economy:
2011-06-03: -
Avination stats:
2011-06-04 04:16 UTC, 30,721 residents, 7,590 in 30d, 1,032 sims

Mini mall

Today, I worked mainly with the forum and the attached mini mall. There will be 3 proper shops to start with, one for me, one for Lena, who I hope I will manage to persuade start selling her creations, and possibly one for Maggie. I also added place for a number of ads or small vendors to the mall. I'm still not done with all the details, but the major layout is done at least.

This evening, Maggie and Lena had a long talk, and afterwards, Maggie and me went window shopping for some accessoirs to the island. We found quite a few pretty good things at decent prices by a new designer, and I'm pretty sure I will shop some there when I know better what I need exactly.

Economy:
2011-06-02: -
Avination stats:
2011-06-03 04:16 UTC, 30,648 residents, 7,635 in 30d, 1,034 sims

Railroad and grand scale layouts

In the morning, Maggie and me cuddled and chatted as so often. In the afternoon and evening, I made some final adjustments on the railroad tracks, adding crossing and cleaning up some, and also added some stairs and a forum around the temple, for passages and a small market place. That way, Maggie knows better where her decorations can go. She spent the evening hunting for decorations, crashing, and decorating a small island outside the main island. The grid also "froze" for some time, and when we were about to leave, I couldn't TP out of the sim.

Economy:
2011-06-01: -
Avination stats:
2011-06-02 04:16 UTC, 30,556 residents, 7,652 in 30d, 1,040 sims


The temple with railroad in foreground in the sim BDSM



Maggie's decorated island in the sim BDSM



Walk bridge over the railroad at Maggie's park in the sim BDSM

Slow progress

This morning, I spent the time in bed, chatting with Maggie. In the evening, I kept building the railroad until Maggie came, a bit later than usual, and then the sim BDSM messed up, so we decided to restart BDSM and go spend some time together in Sweet Hideout instead, before restarting that one too after we logged out.

Economy:
2011-05-31: upload -C$10, decoration fund for Maggie -C$600
Avination stats:
2011-06-01 04:16 UTC, 30,454 residents, 7,707 in 30d, 1,040 sims

BDSM devices and railroads

Yesterday, I spent much of my time in Avination trying to straighten out one of my old BDSM devices from Second Life, a kind of Spanish horse. Scripting wasn't really on my side, and when I finally got the scripts working, I discovered the sit animation wobbled. I still havn't managed to track down if that's because of the animation itself or something else. Things do work a bit different in Avination compared to Second Life, so just because something worked flawlessly in Second Life doen't mean it does in Avination. Maggie spent much of her time working on a new carrousel, and prettifying the area with greenery and things.

Today, we spent the morning chatting, and in the evening, after shopping some plants and waves with Maggie, I finally took time to raise a ridge on the BDSM island to make room for Maggie to create a dramatic waterfall, plus increasing the size of a little island she wanted to prettify some. I also started laying out the railroad line around the island, so Maggie will be able to adapt her greenery and decorations from the start, instead of having to remake it later. I got a good start, but still have about half of the main line left to lay out.

Economy:
2011-05-29: sale +C$10
2011-05-30: upload -C$10
Avination stats:
2011-05-30 04:16 UTC, 30,241 residents, 7,633 in 30d, 1,041 sims
2011-05-31 04:16 UTC, 30,345 residents, 7,746 in 30d, 1,040 sims


Spanish horse of kind, in the dungeon at the sim BDSM



The sim BDSM, from SW with railroading, landscaping and waterscaping in progress



The pond in the sim BDSM, prettyfied by Maggie

Permission problems

I spent much of the day today trying to fix problems with permissions in Maggie's and mine sim BDSM. I discovered them when I tried to give Lena permissions to build there. It first looked like she couldn't build when she should have been able, but later turned out she could build, even when she wasn't supposed to. In the end, after numerous setting changes and restarts, I submitted a support ticket, without much hope of having the problem solved. Bottom line is, I can't open the sim up to public, before I made sure they can't rezz, build, litter and grief all over the place.

I spent a couple of hours with Lena, first trying to set her up, and then helping her out with a scripting problem she got stuck on. That sure "paid off" fast, because already in the evening, Maggie showed me her latest gift from Lena, including the functionality I helped her with. Lena really is a great designer, and very fast at learning too it seems. Actually, she added at least as much to the solution of the problem today as I did, when we discussed the best way to solve it.

Economy:
2011-05-28: paid votes +C$14, upload -C$260, contest -C$2
Avination stats:
2011-05-29 04:15 UTC, 30,156 residents, 7,650 in 30d, 1,048 sims

Taking care of friends

This morning, Maggie and I tried to set things up, so that we could let Lena come to our sim. Probably owing to lag of some form, it took time for the required setting changes to come through, but eventually we had it working, using Maggie's old avatar as a "crash test dummy".

Maggie met Lena this afternoon, and invited her to the island. It seems everything went well, and happily accepted Maggie's offer for her to have our island as a home. We both like Lena a lot, so we are happy for that. I hope I can manage to persuade her to start selling her creations as well, and having at least one shop for it on our island, since she's really a good designer.

In the evening, I added a few more information scrolls to the temple library at the island. Then Maggie dragged me off on a free money hunt on some island. After that we returned to our island and tried to set permissions right, to permit Lena to build, but not ordinary visitors and basic group members.It didn't work at all, but it may again have been because of lag. In the end, we gave up and went home to Sweet Hideout to bed, and I restarted both BDSM, Sweet Hideout and Sweet Retreat, hoping that would solve the permission issues on BDSM.

Economy:
2011-05-27: bird bath -C$200
Avination stats:
2011-05-28 04:18 UTC, 30,077 residents, 7,698 in 30d, 1,051 sims

Shopping decorations

In the morning, Maggie and I went to look for dolphins, since she very much wanted some of those around our island. We didn't find any we were really happy with, but she wound up with a swan and duck instead, and we know where we'll probably buy dolphins if we don't find anything better.

In the evening, I met Maggie and our friend Lena at the creator's expo, plus a German master and slave couple that seemed rather nice. After a few sim restarts and crashes, and some chat, Maggie and I went on to explore the expo area. They had some nice things there, and Maggie bought a bird bath which was very nicely designed. Time ran much too fast as usual though, so we broke off to go home and to bed, and hope to continue our exploration tomorrow.

Economy:
2011-05-26: clothes -C$50
Avination stats:
2011-05-27 04:18 UTC, 29,993 residents, 7,744 in 30d, 1,054 sims

Railroading polishing

This morning, Maggie and I spent mainly testing Avination performance and chatting. Yesterday's bliss was gone, and Maggie crashed at least as much as usual, if not more even. Performance for long-time no-idle scripts remains up though, compared to what it has been over the last month or so.

In the evening, I spent quite a lot of time fixing up appearance of my railroad templates, and calculating and trying out track geometries, and how to let the track follow the ground better, rather than having to build a lot of bridges and remodel topography a lot. I also think I have some ideas on how to fix the "engine" script to make it more stable and last longer. Maggie and I also went to check out a clothing sale, but they didn't have very much, and when we were to unpack things, several things either couldn't be unpacked, or turned out to be flawed.

Economy:
2011-05-25: upload -C$40
Avination stats:
2011-05-26 04:18 UTC, 29,911 residents, 7,806 in 30d, 1,060 sims


Railroad test around the castle sketch in the sim BDSM



Railroad test around the castle sketch in the sim BDSM



Railroad test around the castle sketch in the sim BDSM

Ups and downs of Avination

This morning, Maggie and I checked up some performance parameters after yesterday's "improvement" roll-out. Yes, I am skeptic about such, after previous experiences of what Avination management has rolled out. This time, two of the paremeters I use to check was much improved though. The simple train I set up in Sweet Hideout managed to make a couple of dozens of full rounds without freezing up, before finally crashing both itself and me riding it. For the last month or so, it has frozen in place for 30-120 seconds several times per 8 minute turn. Also, Maggie was able to ride 4 full turns with it, without crashing, before she had to leave for real-life. That's also a first for the last month or so.

However, it's hard to tell how much is the server software fixes, how much is the almost simultaneous server park maintenance, and how much is simply thorough purging and cleaning from the total and repeated restarts. I guess the future will tell if those improvements are temporary or not. Also, in the morning, there was severe server lag for a while in Sweet Hideout, possibly connected to a couple of visitors since it seemed to disappear with them, and in the evening, while working in our sim BDSM, I noticed far more spurts of server lag than I have before. I guess I'll have to wait some to see if that's a temporary or permanent condition as well.

I spent the evening trying to correct sit targets in some items I rebuilt from prototypes I originally made in Second Life. Having one item with 63 different animations, each with its individual sit target adapting to avatar size, it took a damn lot of time and effort. The reason is some clever fellow obviously decided OpenSim worlds like Avination shouldn't use the same internal avatar sit target as Second Life. Also, scripts seem to work a bit different between Second Life and Avination when it comes to handling sits/unsits in general, as I already discovered with that should-be simple sit-teleport script I had to work out a special solution for OpenSim/Avination with. Even after properly seated, an avatar can slide some sideways on the sit target, which is a major nuisance if the items are designed for precise seating.

I fully understand now why designers and manufacturers of more advanced, complex and functional furniture and devices in Second Life stay the hell out of OpenSim worlds like Avination, as long as those worlds only offer maybe 1% of the Second Life customer base but demands almost as much work, with no guarantee of the device ever working equally well or the world even surviving until they have a chance to break even.

Economy:
2011-05-24: upload -C$50
Avination stats:
2011-05-25 04:15 UTC, 29,840 residents, 7,867 in 30d, 1,059 sims

Railroading

This morning, Maggie and I tried to check out some performance problems with our sim BDSM, and I tried to set her up as estate manager, for her to be able to handle some things when I'm not around. Neither went all that well, but at least a restart of the sim revealed some lost ghost prims that probably at least didn't improve the performance of the sim.

In the evening, Maggie's estate manager status had finally been recognized, and we spent much of the evening building, she on her house, and me on some track templates for the railroad I may set up for fun and sight-seeing tours in the sim. I also helped her out with a few tips to remove "tipsyness" from her house. That is, while we didn't have to dodge sim and grid restarts.

AVN management was rolling out some "improvements" this evening. I'll wait with believing it until I've seen the actual effects of those "improvements". The last batch of them caused a whole series of emergency updates and restarts, followed by the still continuing troubles with login outages and very poor grid performance and stability. And the time before that, they deliberately throttled the performance down so that rezzing after arrival to a new place took forever.

Economy:
2011-05-23: upload -C$540
Avination stats:
2011-05-24 04:15 UTC, 29,712 residents, 7,855 in 30d, 1,059 sims

Real-life obstacles and Avination policies

Owing to a severe cold, I really wasn't up to much this evening. Maggie was a bit late, so while I waited, I managed to upload and install some of the information, in the shape of in-world readable scrolls, from my old place in Second Life. When Maggie came, we discussed some, and then she tried my bondage stake. I will really need to go through and adjust a lot of the poses in it, since they're way off here in Avination compared to Second Life. After a while, I felt I was drained from energy, and I had to excuse myself to make an early night and try to get some extra sleep.

When I was uploading the animations for my bondage stake yesterday, and also when I uploaded images for my scroll readers today, I was thinking about how blissfully unaware the Avination management seems to be about how their policies and favours basically tells the ones not enjoying them to go take a hike. The policy with free uploads for "recognized creators" really tell the new up and coming ones they're not worth anything. The strong focus on merchants, with weekly merchant meetings, tells the rest, including the merchants' would-be customers, they're not really part of Avination or very important. The use of voice at official meetings tells those with e.g. hearing impairments and language problems to get lost. The attempt with severe throttling of rezzing, to benefit the 1-2% of the sim owners who run venues with many simultaneous arrivals, told the 98-99% of the sim owners who don't to go fuck themselves. The regulations of freebies, and the utterly insensitive way of presenting that policy, tells all those who are sane enough not to want to start spending money right away in a new and untested virtual world, which is really just another one of so many, they may as well turn in the door and leave.

The sheer ignorance and lack of respect shown with those policies, really makes it no wonder Avination keeps spinning closer and closer to the drain. Even if the technical problems will eventually be solved, I think it will still take very hard work and probably a large dose of humility from the Avination management, to repair the damage they've done and trust they've lost with their past, present and would-be users from the way they have been and keep treating them.

Economy:
2011-05-22: upload -C$670
Avination stats:
2011-05-23 04:15 UTC, 29,599 residents, 7,882 in 30d, 1,064 sims


Scroll readers in the temple library in the sim BDSM



A sketch for a future castle in the sim BDSM



A design sample of a future railroad in the sim BDSM