I want to address the issue of inworld economy for ReactionGrid briefly but as detailed as possible.
Some facts:
- OpenSim core versions do not support it. When they do it will take time and effort to ensure it works with Microsoft SQL Server which we use on our platform.
- ReactionGrid, our virtual world, does not have inworld currency in its roadmap. We value education and collaboration first and only will support links to webpages for users to sell products or services.
- Our grid clients are free to code their own money systems or wait for OpenSim to implement this in the future. This is why we lease grid servers, you can make your own priorities & HyperGrid to us to get the best of all options.
- Neither myself nor my team is equipped with the expertise to manage an escrow based economy at this point. On top of that we do not want a slice of your virtual pie. Make all the money for yourself, you deserve it! Link to Paypal directly and manage your own system. It will be more reliable than us in the middle as an added layer to work through for your customers. We got into this to create cool things with an experimental platform. Economy was never why we ourselves started a grid.
- We are not anti business. We simply want to keep the focus of ReactionGrid, our grid, on collaboration, experimentation, fun.
- This move actually benefits other grids. We want to send this business your way. Build a grid, offer an economy & shops & if its PG/PG13 we will HyperGrid to you. If you host with us we will promote you in bigger ways. We want you to succeed!
The team at ReactionGrid certainly wants our clients hosting grids and sims to make a profit. We are constrained by the Alpha status of OpenSim and its lack of this feature is the only reason why our grid clients are not using it now. We will soon provide some very simple scripts that work with www.sitefinity.com & or www.paypal.com to get you selling items externally.
We immediately offer DotNetCart with lightweight LSL scripts to allow for immediate sales from inworld llHTTP links/scripts.
I encourage you to visit http://opensimulator.org to query the development team on when this will be implemented if it is core to your virtual world plans for your own grid.
This status will likely change over time as we address this for other grids but ReactionGrid itself will only use inworld monetary system to offer rewards/credits.
But again, if you get your own grid there is no limits whatsoever to how you can implement what we do not on our own grid. All the opinions above apply to our singular, core grid, named “ReactionGrid”. It exists mainly to foster community.