Teen Grid To Be Axed – Players Protest, Cheer

by Alphaville Herald on 15/08/10 at 5:04 pm

Mixed Reactions From the Teen Grid

by RC Adamski

Protest Snapshot  Epic 01

Philip Linden announced Saturday at the SLCC convention in Boston that sixteen and seventeen year old members of the Teen Grid would be transferred to the Main Grid, and that the younger part of the grid would be turned off in the coming months. In response to this, many reactions have broken out on the Teen Grid, ranging from excitement and joy, to depression and disbelief. The lines of opinion have mainly been drawn between those under sixteen and those over it.

In the TG sim Epic, protests broke out earlier today, with protesters making their voice heard to all that entered the sim. These are a few of the comments that could be heard by onlookers.

Lavender Pearl shouts: TSL deserves to stay.
BabyGirl Hexicola: SAVE TSL DONT LET IT DIE WE STAND IN PRIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TSL IS HERE AND ITS STAYING HERE RUMOR OR NOT TSL TSL TSL TSL!!!!!!!!!!! WHY SHOULD THE MAIN GRID STAY AND NOT US I DONT THINK SO SAVE TSL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[16:34] tails Aldrin: WHY SHOULD THEY GET TO STAY BUT NOT US WHAT HAVE WE EVER DONE TO THEM!!!!
BabyGirl Hexicola: Teen Second Life deserves to stay! Just because we have idiots who dont kno what they are doing doesnt mean we all have to suffer! Ive made tons of new friends! I appeciate all this!!!

Protest Snapshot  Epic 02

One resident I spoke with has reason to protest LL’s decision given the fact that the status he has gained in the TG will be eradicated:

RC: So what are you going to do?
Stealth|: Be depressed?
Stealth|: All of my work.
Stealth|: I’m finally a person here.
Stealth|: Gone

Not everyone on the Teen Grid was upset with LL’s decision, however. Some people on the TG were happy with the decision, because many people there have friends who turned eighteen and transferred over to the Main Grid. Personally, I’ve received messages over Skype from old TG friends telling me that they were excited to be able to meet me again.

Wolf Bovarro: The only Vantage point of this is I’ll be able to see you on MG.

Zach: I MIGHT GET TO SEE YOU AGAIN

Another person I spoke with, Arte Mekanic, a member of a TSL army named Catalyst Ops, had this to say.

RC: What is Catalyst going to do?
Artemiy: I dont know
Artemiy: Everyone is making a new account offcourse…
Artemiy: XD
Artemiy: Im actualy really happy..

This shouldn’t be too surprising. After all, those under sixteen probably won’t just sit down and wait a few years for LL to un-suspend their accounts.

Oh, let’s not forget. There’s always a griefer or two that takes advantage of the situation.

RC: Well what did you do on the grid before today?
RC: And what are you going to do now?
Subzidion.: Right now
Subzidion.: I’m Flying around with a HObo suit on
Subzidion.: yelling
Subzidion.: The end is Nigh
RC: So, business as usual then.

Subzidion Nightfire 001
Subzidion Nightfire

He’s actually a friend of mine. He doesn’t always act like this, but it makes for a good picture.
To be fair, he had this to say. And I believe him.

RC: You know, you should probably behave a bit better >_>
Subzidion.: When Grid Merge happens, i will.
Subzidion.: Then this population will be the only one who knows of my immaturity.
Subzidion.: Which will be
Subzidion.: Minuscule

There’s really only one course of action that I can see to take – just sit back and see where this leads.

Since I’m not one of the people under sixteen, I’m not exactly affected by this. The only thing I see coming is more of my friends able to legally create accounts on the Main Grid. And the rest of them illegally creating accounts on the Main Grid.

I hope that LL figures out how to preserve the work of the people of the Teen Grid. Several years of hard work will be wiped away, otherwise.

45 Responses to “Teen Grid To Be Axed – Players Protest, Cheer”

  1. Maria Korolov

    Aug 15th, 2010

    Full list of OpenSim hosting providers is here — with their prices: http://bit.ly/chf8ob

    ReactionGrid seems to be the most popular with the educators and the PG set. Can have four regions on ReactionGrid for $75 a month, or they can set you up with a private grid of your own.

    Hypergrid allows you to teleport (with your avatar, inventory everything) back and forth from your private grid to ReactionGrid — or to any of the other grids in the metaverse.

    – Maria Korolov
    Editor, Hypergrid Business
    http://www.hypergridbusiness.com

  2. At0m0 Beerbaum

    Aug 15th, 2010

    Next up:

    The main grid will be closing off regions.

  3. Ted

    Aug 15th, 2010

    The teen grid was slated to be closed years ago. And it never happened due to all the porn and adult atmosphere that was represented in Second Life. Nothing new here, they are just getting around to doing what “leaked” some number of years ago.

    Linden couldn’t keep the kids out of Second Life. Nor did they really try. Which was one of the biggest issues with Second Life since 2004.

    Merging an adult world with the teen grid is the end of Second Life. And I’ve personally waited for this announcement for a long time.

    There is no room in Second Life for children, for adolescents. None. Nor was there ever any reason for under age to be in Second Life.

    This is your nail in the coffin. This is is the demise of Second Life and was since the beginning when they did little to nothing to keep SL an adult oriented world.

    The reason they are doing this is so that they can put to rest the idea that Second Life is an adult oriented environment not suitable for those that are under the age of 18 years of age.

    Again, you are hearing the pounding of the final nails. This is it.

  4. Little Lost Linden

    Aug 15th, 2010

    I’ve seen some articles stating that for the teens under 16, their accounts would be only suspended until they turn 16.

    Not sure if this is true or not though:

    http://danielvoyagerblog.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/recap-of-philip-linden-keynotes-address-at-slcc-2010/

    Part way down there is mention that Terrence Linden is not going to be deleting any TG accounts.

    This would be more of like a type of cryogenetic limbo sleep for the younger TG people. Hopefully that is what ends up happening in the long run. For some (almost 16 people), the slumber would be rather short.

    Makes more sense than total anihilation.

  5. Ted

    Aug 15th, 2010

    And thus lies the “Pole in the attic”, the pole that spelled out perfectly for all to hear…. “Dance Here”.

    We are so close to seeing the dance. It’s truly fascinating to watch such vision come to pass.

  6. Andrew Hughes

    Aug 15th, 2010

    There are many alternatives in Opensim such as:

    SimHost
    ReactionGrid
    PioneerX Estates
    Media Dialog
    Grid4Us
    WorldSimTerra
    DeepThink

    This is just a small list of sim hosting companies that can hypergrid into grids. You can see a list of grids at:

    http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Grid_List

    There are ways to move your content, it’s not going to be the easiest thing to do but it’s very realistic to make that goal happen. While teen grid is being discontinued I am sure Linden Lab will help with content.

  7. Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia

    Aug 15th, 2010

    Maria: I know that reaction grid has a lot of corporate and academic backing, but it’s a laggy mess when I go there. Even with no avatars around teleports fail a LOT more than they succeed, and just walking across a sim has me rubberbanding off the sim like crazy. I think they must have implemented mesh too soon or something. It’s better than blue mars, but that isn’t saying much. SL isn’t as laggy as reaction grid. They must have the entire grid on one server or something crazy.

    I’d love to use RG to learn about this mesh thing but I can’t even find a sandbox that will let me build in RG. Using the map I found a sim with sandbox in the name but it has build rights turned off. I have a LM from the welcome area for a sandbox, but it’s useless, since I can’t teleport anywhere. There is no search. A lot of OS grids have some form of search now.

    I’d recommend OSG for refugees from the teen grid. For adults, though, I think roleplay worlds has the best orientation experience.

    Running your own OS server is not difficult at all. It can be done for a little as $30 a month for a decent server, if not less. I can’t imagine paying $75 for it, let alone what LL charges for land.

    I’d love to see a day when running an OS region is as cheap and easy as it is to run a word press. I know, that’s crazy talk. I can dream.

  8. Maria Korolov

    Aug 15th, 2010

    ReactionGrid hasn’t implemented meshes — they’re running on 0.6.9, so they haven’t even implemented media-on-a-prim yet.

    I haven’t found lag to be more of a problem in OpenSim than in Second Life. I frequently get stuck in Second Life meetings where I have problems moving around or turning corners. I spend several hours a week on both, and for me, the big difference right now is that voice in Second Life is better. Not great — I still have problems with group calls — but better.

    One of the things you pay for when you get Second Life is that nice Vivox voice. In OpenSim, they typically use Freeswitch, a free alternative which isn’t as good.

    ReactionGrid has a lot of educators on it, running low-cost regions to save money (though this may be changing, I don’t know.)

    OSGrid is variable. You’ve got some regions run on dinky little home computers with dialup (well, maybe not dialup) and some regions run on supercomputers located in high-end data centers on top of Internet backbones.

    Some of the smaller commercial grids try to maintain a consistent experience for visitors by having everyone buy standard packages from them. Grid4Us (now part of GermanGrid) was nice like that, and runs the latest OpenSim — so you’ve got Hypergrid 1.4, media-on-a-prim, all the goodies.

    InWorldz tries to have a high-end experience and has been pushing concurrency numbers lately.

    ScienceSim runs experiments. One day you’ve got 200,000 prims on a region. The next day you’ve got 1,000 regions on a single server. The next, 1,000 avatars on a region. (They’ve done all of these!) So you never know what big undertaking you’ll end up in the middle of in there! But always exciting. :-)

    A lot of companies and schools that need high-end performance set up private, behind-the-firewall grids, or host them in high-end data centers. ReactionGrid will set up high performance grids for people, and so will SimHost, Dreamland Metaverse and a few other outfits.

    Now, we’re starting to get outfits offering regions for $10 each. This week, I’m going to go check them out — see what kind of performance they’re getting for that price. That ridiculously low, low, low price.

    – Maria

  9. Alyx Stoklitsky

    Aug 15th, 2010

    That’s cute, they think their e-signs will make a difference!

  10. Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia

    Aug 15th, 2010

    Maria: My info about mesh on reaction grid comes from this article: http://maxping.org/business/news/reactiongrid-premieres-realxtend.aspx

    I couldn’t tell the difference really since I couldn’t find a place to build, I just assumed that people who find a place to build there can use meshes.

    I’m starting on a quick YouTube video that will tour a lot of open sim grids. You’ll see what I mean by lag and failed TPs. RG is totally unusable right now.

  11. Obvious Lurker

    Aug 15th, 2010

    ♫ This is the end
    Beautiful friend
    This is the end
    My only friend, the end

    Of our elaborate plans, the end
    Of everything that stands, the end
    No safety or surprise, the end
    I’ll never look into your eyes…again

    Can you picture what will be
    So limitless and free
    Desperately in need…of some…stranger’s hand
    In a…desperate land .♫

  12. Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia

    Aug 16th, 2010

    Sorry about criticizing the RG so bad, earlier today it was horrible, but I just now signed in again and it was a lot smoother. I must have logged in during maintenance or something.

  13. Father Jones

    Aug 16th, 2010

    Now go ahead teenies. Go play some high roller Zyngo on the main grid and buy some more linden dollars when you discover it is nothing about skill but all about gambling. You will start of good becomming a gambling addict on a very early age. That is good for your mindset for the rest of your life, as well as for the million dollar gambling industry with no regulations at all prospering in Second Life. Finding your casino on the main grid is easy, just search for ‘Zyngo’ and you will find numerous sims with no age restrictions at all to put the money of yourself and your parents in those dubious zyngo-machines that pretend to be a game of skill but actually come down whether the random devil desides to take your money or not. It all proves that Linden Lab does not care about those things, they just want to take your money. You little teens did not make enough money on that teen grid, so be welcome to the biggest undercover casino online: Linden Lab’s Second Life main grid !

  14. Meif Ling

    Aug 16th, 2010

    There’s some good things on TG. I think they should merge the grids entirely literally. Keep the land, the continents, the island, just move them to Main Grid as PG Sims.

    Let Under 16 members of TSL stay, but restrict them to the TG as it was until they read 16, and close Under 16 TG registrations immediately. It’s only fair.

  15. Yep

    Aug 16th, 2010

    “and buy some more linden dollars ”

    How will the teens buy linden dollars? The moment they get payment info on file, they have access to the adult area’s.
    Then the Legal mess about communicating with a minor in an immoral way will surface.

    Will this mean that LL’s plan in the beginning to have everyone prove their age through age verification with Aristotile will go into effect? The last time I used a prepaid Visa/ MC, in not one spot was my age asked. Only my name address and telephone number.

    Most people in SL prefer to keep their RL details out of SL so asking A/S/L won’t protect you when most adults will not answer that question already.

  16. Yep

    Aug 16th, 2010

    On a positive note… if the teens do own land on the TG, LL could simply move the land ownership from the TG into one of the many abandoned parcels on the main grid. This might actually raise land values for the rest of us.

  17. Alejandro Acanthus

    Aug 16th, 2010

    Im famous see that robot in the picture over there. Thats me! and i have an account in the os grid. I imported the stuff i made there so try to find me :3

  18. woooot

    Aug 16th, 2010

    great. now i have to worry that some girl i meet in a club might be under aged in RL :-(

  19. Slayer

    Aug 16th, 2010

    Boy now isn’t that some shit. There are a lot of adult places on the MG not tagged as adult including many RP sims.
    I wouldn’t want to be the big bad gor geek who is sitting across from the police who is holding a stack of papers with all of his chat logs after being caught with a harem of 16 yr old gor whores.
    LMAO, not only would they have to explain their actions, but this chat log with all the weird stuff highlighted in yellow, would stay somewhere as a perminate record and come back and haunt them later.

  20. had enough

    Aug 16th, 2010

    Pfft who cares if they are under 18 or not. if they grief ban them. If they kiddies are going to access the adult areas(we all know they will), don’t be a perv and stay out of those places, then you have nothing to worry about.

  21. Yep

    Aug 16th, 2010

    ” would stay somewhere as a perminate record and come back and haunt them later.”

    If my daughter who is 17 was found in those areas (she is not allowed in SL period), I would call the police dept. and once i had the miserable little worms name,address, and birthdate, I would post all of their sick chat logs on google, craigs list in their home town,with their employer, and any place else to make this information public about this pervert. This way they will always have this popping up any time they want to get a good paying job or any job involving children.

    “I wouldn’t want to be the big bad gor geek who is sitting across from the police who is holding a stack of papers with all of his chat logs after being caught with a harem of 16 yr old gor whores.”

    Or sitting across from their employer who is holding the same stack of paper.

  22. Emperor Norton hears a who?

    Aug 16th, 2010

    Ted @ There is no room in Second Life for children, for adolescents. None. Nor was there ever any reason for under age to be in Second Life.”

    You’ve never played Second Life, have you Ted?

    Personally I am DISGUSTED the teenage girl I kidnap for my interstate abduction-torture fantasy may in RL be a teenage girl instead of some 40 man but, you got to roll with the punches.

  23. Edna

    Aug 16th, 2010

    I can see the outcome already. Men going to prison for having virtual cyberspace with adult grid prostitutes who swore they were 25. Store owners and content creators having the FBI breaking down their RL front doors, seizing their computers, and dragging them off to prison for selling virtual adult items to minors on the adult grid who swore they were over 18. Who’s that one guy going to sue when the police take him away in RL when a kids buys one of his sex bed?

    Great idea Phillip. Sounds like the answer that SL needed.

  24. Alejandro Acanthus

    Aug 17th, 2010

    Im disgusted at this decision. I may be 13 and like some other teens. I don’t care if Philip has content filters in the main grid. Teens nowadays are good at scripting and hacking. And imagine this your best friend on TSL goes on the main grid and oh say 1 2 or 3 years you are transffered and your friend doesn’t remember you. Now is that really pleasent? And what about those sex beds in the main grid?

  25. General Drama

    Aug 17th, 2010

    Predicted years ago, all the haters denied it. Basically they’re merging the two now since SL is old news and off the radar, and republicans aren’t in charge in DC to make a stink about it.

  26. Darklion The Thundercat

    Aug 17th, 2010

    I am an bi male whitelion furry on Secondlife’s main grid
    and usually go after gay male furrys and I want them to be
    age 18 and up. I don’t want to be in trouble for haveing sex
    with an underage male minor on Secondlife’s main grid because
    Secondlife was made for adults and there are adult themed places
    on Secondlife’s main grid that don’t allow minors.

  27. Nelson Jenkins

    Aug 17th, 2010

    @ Darklion The Thundercat

    Thanks for your life story. Maybe you should do your research before yiffing up a storm. Or – gasp! – get a mate that you can trust, and forget being a whore.

  28. Duh

    Aug 18th, 2010

    Darklion; everyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the past few years know that furries are some of the worst when it comes to cybering with openly underage gay minors on the adult grid. Also don’t forget the ermm.. baby furs?

  29. Yep

    Aug 18th, 2010

    Oh that is disgusting. Now they are yiffing baby animals. Sounds to me like age play.

  30. Nelson Jenkins

    Aug 18th, 2010

    @ Yep

    Haven’t actually seen any cub sex personally in-world.

  31. Slayer

    Aug 18th, 2010

    The baby fur play is a form of child sex play that the furrys use as a work around for the age-play policy.
    I have seen this and reported it. I am unsure of the outcome of my AR.

  32. Nelson Jenkins

    Aug 18th, 2010

    @ Slayer

    I wasn’t aware that shrinking your avatar and putting on a diaper automatically made you an advocate of child sex.

  33. Journey Yellowlist

    Aug 18th, 2010

    Historians of the future will earn PhDs in sociology based on this set of comments.

    Makes one want to begin a nuclear holocaust, doesn’t it?

  34. Journey Yellowlist

    Aug 18th, 2010

    Or Sociologists of the future will earn PhDs in history, one.

    It won’t matter, either way, because these future Earthlings will be cockroaches, after our leaders all become baby furs in SL and push that red button down, wracked with grief over their perversions.

  35. Slayer

    Aug 18th, 2010

    The two furrys that I witnessed were undoubtedly having sex. One was an adult sized furry avatar yiffing an animal baby.

  36. Recalibar

    Aug 18th, 2010

    Wait, this started as a topic about Second life grid merge then we moved on to Baby animal porn starting a nuclear holocaust? Godwin’s law much?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
    Hail Hitler.

  37. Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia

    Aug 18th, 2010

    Goodwin was a Nazi.

  38. had enough

    Aug 18th, 2010

    Wonderful, that is all we need… Second Life being closed because of a few lawsuits filed because some pedophilic fur faggot yiffed a 16 year old.

  39. Sigmund Leominster

    Aug 19th, 2010

    Sigh! I can see it now. NBC’s new show – “To Catch a Virtual Predator,” where Chris Hansen pretends to be a 12-year-old kid pretending to be a 45-year-old-man pretending to be a large furry animal having sex with other pretend 12-year-olds pretending to be 35-year-olds pretending to be animals. It sort of makes my brain hurt. At least when “Emperor Norton hears a who?” indulges his desire to murder Real Life teenagers he’s pretty sure it IS a teen he’s killing. Life is so much more predictable outside of Second Life.

  40. Anon

    Aug 20th, 2010

    @father jones no way to even earn L anymore so kinda hard for em to get any money to play zyngo in the first place unless they go steal mommy’s credit card.

  41. Ted

    Aug 20th, 2010

    @Emperor Norton

    “You’ve never played Second Life, have you Ted?”

    No, I have not. Second Life never was a “game”. Nor will it ever be. Thus no, I’ve never “played” it.

  42. Violet

    Aug 22nd, 2010

    Gah, this is such a crazy topic! Sometimes I think First, Second, and any other Lives would be so much simpler if it weren’t for the “adult = erotic” mentality. There’s plenty on the main grid for and by people who could care less about NSFW activities. It’s too bad they can’t just put the age-inappropriate sims on a separate grid rather than shun the population that has legal reasons not to get involved with that subset of the massive virtual world. (That might also solve other problems, like making sexual ageplay easier to police by the keeping the “age” and the “play” a grid apart. But I’m sure it would be a nightmare to migrate neutral content and would altogether screw up the whole freeform shaping of the world thing for quite a few communities.)

  43. Finger

    Aug 22nd, 2010

    Give the kids the ability to export their yiff or better yet, put it on ice until they’re old enough to log in to the main grid to retrieve it.

  44. Yavannah Halostar

    Aug 23rd, 2010

    @ Yep

    Conceptional Error:
    Adults joined SL to play Adult games there.
    As an Adult user, you cannot verify who the other is.
    You have to trust that, sittign in an Adult Area or Mature area, only Mature people can enter there. Grown Ups.
    For that kind of Filtering one is paying Linden Labs.
    That is not the real world where I can guess that a babbling gnome is a minor , but there I might be talking to a prince charming, or to a dragoness in shimmering armor, and I would be rather confused when something I did the last 6 years al lof a sudden gets me a criminal record. After all , what the heck am I paying those Smurfs for?
    Parents should know what their kids are doing.
    Or you should be able to trust them and their abilities which you should have taught them over the years.
    When the kid doesn’t go astray, the weirdo can’t start chitchatting with it. The kid should know who’s a weirdo – the weirdo cannot check that he talks wit ha kid or another weirdo.

    Puttign the fault here at the weirdo is the same idea that a certain guy from Braunau at the river Inn made popular in Germany from 1933 to 1945:
    Find somebody to point at and call him the bad guy, even when you yourself are doing al lthe bad things.
    And even when it would work:
    It would not be right.
    Really.

  45. Little Lost Linden

    Aug 23rd, 2010

    Holy Moly!

    The drama sure is something astronomical this year in SL. I don’t remember it ever being this crazy before.

    http://thebotzone.net/2010/08/14/second-life-teen-grid-gets-the-chainsaw/

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