The Great Grand Country of Decentraland

https://decentraland.org/terms:

“Decentraland”, a decentralized virtual world.

https://decentraland.org/whitepaper2.pdf?page=8

The original ideas that gave birth to Decentraland began to take shape when Manuel Araoz and Esteban Ordano tested a prototype that explored the possibility of using the Bitcoin blockchain to register digital land.

https://decentraland.org/whitepaper.pdf?page=2

A traversable 3D world adds an immersive component as well as adjacency to other content, enabling physical clusters of communities.
Land in Decentraland is permanently owned by the community. […] Users claim ownership of virtual land on a blockchain-based ledger of parcels.

https://decentraland.org/whitepaper2.pdf?page=9

On February 20, 2020 Decentraland officially launched as the world’s first blockchain-based virtual world.

https://decentraland.org/whitepaper2.pdf?page=20
It is this feature of being able to freely wander from one privately-owned plot to another, experiencing a wide variety of user-generated content, that is significant and unique to Decentraland.

https://decentraland.org/whitepaper2.pdf?page=5

The community enjoys an active social calendar featuring a range of events from weekly parties to annual music festivals.

https://decentraland.org/whitepaper2.pdf?page=8

Decentraland’s essence is rooted deeper. It’s not merely about navigating digital space; it’s about fostering genuine human connections, championing individual freedom, and nurturing creative expression

https://decentraland.org/whitepaper2.pdf?page=4

Decentraland […] operates beyond the control of any single entity and can never be taken down.

· Tao of DAO

Hear ye, hear ye ! Gather 'round to hear this tale of mine centered around the Decentraland metaverse :dcl:

Over a year ago already, I trekked all the way out to this far Wild Web3 West on my trusted steed TopLap :horse::computer:, on the enthralling heedings of the AI World Fair announcements.
How dismayed was I to find a place with barely any content, and full of ghosts :dotted_line_face:

A few elements of the surroundings did appear… And some UI widgets, alluding to the presence of coins, which presumably were lying around, nicely firing up the ole’ scavenger instincts.

But no coin was to be seen !

And then there were some strange green walls which glowed for half a minute, after which they dropped away, supposedly indicating that content within had finished loading and was ready for entry. But… wait for it ! wait for it !
Oh you guessed it ?
Barely any content inside.

I left !

Nevertheless I was fortunate to have connected that day with a member of the community who sounded surprised that I wasn’t seeing content.
Otherwise I would have given up, concluding that DCL "just doesn’t work"™

Instead I came back the next day, and tinkered with the Scenes Radius settings, contrasting them with TopLap’s network activity, until I managed to get individual scenes to load.
It was quite gratifying to see the coins finally appear ∋-:coin::nose::coin:-∈

And then I was also able to see other avatars, and attend the AI World Fair, and really get a feel for what DCL is all about.

There’s a lot of fixing up to do.
But I do believe it can get big.