Here I am just a few weeks ago, stompin and laughing on´the dance floor Raz´Cafe on Cyberwrld Grid. To my right is my friend, Ptarmigan Park´s own Hylee Bekker, and behind her, sort of sitting on the fence, Raz Welles.The Furry almost directly behind me is grid owner Timothy Vyper, the pretty feline in the upper right corner is Linda Kellie in her Cara Kitty avatar. And last, but never, ever least, is one of the most unforgettable characters I have ever met in the great wide metaverse. Directly in front of me is the big bad wolf, Raleigh Decosta.
Hello my dearest dears! How delightful, here we all are ready for another marvelous adventure on OpenSim, the software platform that hosts hundreds of independant worlds, many of whom choose to be connected by an amped up teleportation system called the hypergrid! This allows you to explore the free metaverse endlessly; snagging freebies, making new friends and having all kinds of fantastic adventures. If you don´t understand this post´s terminology, or just flat out don´t know what OpenSim really is or how to log on, please read my easy to understand OpenSim posts, and don´t forget my newbie glossary at the top of this page!
This post is actually an update. Late in the month of April, word was out that OpenSim´s own Empress of Free Content Creation, Linda Kellie, was packing up her freebie sims and heading to Cyberwrld, a new adult grid intended to be a focal point for the OpenSim Furry and Nekko community, owned by Timothy Vyper. I tracked Linda down, met the whole furry Cyberwrld gang, heard their big plans, got a small tour, and posted about it. Later on, I went to Linda´s massive new Cyberwrld freebie mall and posted about that! Now, a month and a half later,(as is often the case in virtual worlds) everything I wrote is obsolete. Let´s break it down.
Here I am again on the dance floor at Raz´Cafe. This is all now on the OS Grid! Run a search for “Furry” and you will get a bunch of names. Click ” Furry Village” and teleport. That will get you to the cluster of buildings behind me, which is the hub of the community.
CYBERWRLD GRID still exists, albiet I haven´t been able to get on in a long time. Timothy Vyper is still running it, I hear he is thinking about using the Aurora platform, which is the next evolution of OpenSim. It is Hypergrid friendly, so once he has things running properly, we can drop by for a visit. RAZ WELLES, LINDA KELLIE, and Aiden S. have all gone back to the OS Grid, and are in the process of setting up the Furry Community once again. It was a friendly parting of the ways. I asked Linda where the big freeebie mall was, and she said she thought Timothy would set it up again in Cyberwrld, as though misplacing a huge shopping mall was the most normal thing in the world! Now let´s do a little tour of the OS Grid´s new Furry Community! We will use the picture above for orientation. See the palm trees in the upper left hand corner?
This is Raz Welles proudly showing me their idyllic Hypergate dune, complete with ambient sound!
Now let´s walk to the right, to the entrance to Raz´Cafe.
This is a clickable map of the Furry Community. See how some of the sims are pawshaped? And can you see the numbers all around the community sims.These are coordinates for people who are just starting regions on the OS Grid. Raz and Linda( pictured with me) said that instead of OS Grid newbies being stranded on a sim surrounded by endless water, they can set up near the Furry Community for support and companionship. You don´t have to be furry, just furry friendly. Now, let´s go to the other sideof the cafe!
If you can´t find anyone about, try the campfire, which is the unofficial community meeting place. On the other side of the canal, directly behind me, a game room is under construction, but..
.. the sandbox is up and running! The fenced is lined with a tutorial, and there are crates with free textures! Now let´s go to the big building complex behind Raz´Cafe.
You can see here how everything is still very much under construction! The store behind me has been stocked since my last visit- you can get furry and human avatars and accessories, all free of course! Directly behind the building complex…
…is a charming jazz club! Around the left sideof the mountain behind the club..
…are these very cool billboards. They have themes ranging from how to set up a region to what is the Hypergrid- click one, and get an informational notecard! Now let´s go to the harbor!
The ginormous shopping mall may still be in Cyberwrld, but the rent free homes for furries are here with Linda and the gang.
These are the Furry Village Gardens. The blurb says you can find romance here, but heads up, unlike Cyberwrld, the OS GRid Furry Community is M rated.
There are a couple other areas , including a big shopping region, that are still heavily under construction. And then there´s this.
This is Furry Trails, the riding sim that was Raleigh Decosta´s pride. The big bad wolf promised we would to go for a ride someday soon.
Raleigh Decosta went into the hospital for open heart surgery in early May 2012. He did not survive. He was 37 years old.
Just behind the Jazz Club, nestled in the mountainside, his friends have made his favorite chair into a memorial.
And that, my dearest dears, concludes my update of the Furry Community. I am sorry to leave you on such a sad note, but I needed to tell you what finally happened to this very unique individual, and to lead a chirpy little post with a good man´s passing would have been, at the very least, inappropriate. To have written a full eulogy to someone I met twice, would be presumptous. To end on a somber note, I hope, shows the proper respect for Raleigh, and the loss his family and friends have suffered.
Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God -Aeschylus, 554 B.C.E.
