The Beta Grid and time travelling.

I know most of you know what the beta grid is, but since I only found out about it a short while ago, I thought it could be useful to post a short 'how to' get inside this kinda 'hidden grid' also known as preview grid. The reason for this alternative Second Life (I 'd call it third life) is...testing. Linden Lab tests almost everything there and so can you.

To log into the beta grid, just launch SL normally, and then press CTRL-SHIFT-G. You will get a different login menu, that will look like this:



Each of those names in the dropdown menu represent a different grid, but only 2 of them are actually public access. The Agni grid is... Second Life main grid. Aditi grid is the beta. Choose Aditi and login!
Oooops...having troubles loggin in?? Erm, there is something more that you should now. The beta grid status is not up to date. The servers aren't 'refreshed' often so all your present-time data may not be available, such as your...password for example. So if you change your password frequently, you may have to try to remember all of the past ones and try them one at a time until you finally get the one you were using at the time of the last beta grid update.

So...let's say you made it into Beta..

For sure the first thing you notice is...that you 're awesomely RICH!! (oh well, some of you may think of 14,384 L$ as being poor, lol)


The red upper tab is just there to remind you that you are using beta, and the money balance is just...for you to spend the way you want! Unfortunately, there aren't many ways to spend money because there is nothing you can buy...no shops, no malls, nothing. But yes, you can upload EVERYTHING you want for testing purposes and 14K L$ sound like heaven to me. Poses, animations, prims, sounds, textures, and whatever else.Considering that if you're working with sculpties they may require quite a number of sculpty maps uploads before reaching perfection, in the end you can save some good money by doing it on beta. You can work on them, then save them onto your hard drive (all except prims, obviously) so that once you 've finished, you only actually pay the amount necessary to bring your completed items inside the main grid. Isn't it just COOL??

But anyway, if you think it's worth to wander around Beta, just expect to find yourself...BACK IN THE PAST...lol. As I mentioned above, everything on Beta is frozen to some point in the past, so it can be kinda funny to have a look at what you were like back then. Here is me!


GAWD, that is so....tall and skinny! And my good old favorite tux too!!!
Unfortunately, your inventory will look old too, not as old as your avatar, but kinda, so don't you worry if you 're missing some of your recently purchased stuff, they 'll still be there once you log back into the main grid.
If you are a profile sneaker, then click on all of your friends list to remind yourself of the good old times...it may bring back good memories and probably give you an idea of how far back in time you are..Mine looked like this...



Ehm...what do you mean 30 years old?? argh now THAT is a long while ago, lol.
As for your friends list, you may find names of people you 've deleted/forgotten by now, but no worries, they won't show online unless they deliberately decide to log into Beta too..;)
Now let's have a look at the world map..some say Second Life is a small world, so what about Beta grid..is it smaller than small?

This is all you can see by completely zooming out. There's a welcome area and a few sandboxes...and can you count the green dots?? I only managed to count 20 of them, so...small world, a few guys in there and no LAG! So small that I randon TP'ed somewhere and bumped into a friend...



The pic is intentionally taken from a wide angle so that you won't notice her being bald and half naked while working on bed pose animations..lol. she didn't expect me to bug her there too and kinda freaked out at my sight, so I escaped quick before being badly told off.

Okay, what's next? I went to the other neighbouring sandbox and there were no signs of life, except this big sign of warning:

OK, no weapons, but please tell me, even if I carried one, what am I supposed to shoot at??



Maybe this guy knows more...he is a living weapon, or maybe just a transformer, I dunno..



so, no shootings, but WHERE IS THE SEXXXX? no sex at all, weird eh?

and where is the FUN?? I 'll tell you where the fun is..



TOTALLY UNCONTROLLED GRIEFING!!! Omg I couldn't remember the last time I saw the old sim-wide particle shower trick...it used to be a superMario jumping and bumping on you from all sides...now it's just some RL pics of an unlucky (and unaware, I suppose)nerdy looking lady who got caught while in a bad mood..lol


And in case you 're just as naive as someone I know, feel free to accept a random 'ANIMATE YOUR AVATAR' offer to just find out that...

you 're getting owned....omg funny...sad....CRAP. Thanks a lot Estella Starostin, I hope I made your day on the Beta grid, and yes, I most definitely think you're a male in RL, lol.

So to sum things up...Beta grid is useful for a lot of things, mostly for builders and developers.
But in case you haven't got the chance to experience zero lag in SL, its worth a try. It's a very pleasant feeling.
Or, if you 're somehow interested in the feeling of time travelling (lol) that's just what you might be looking for.
Or, if you just need to hang-out/party with a few close friends and no one else around in a huge and empty full sim, just get them all inside Beta grid and have fun!!

Ciao to all :)