Stopping Developers Incentive?

If I were an investor in Linden Lab, I might have had a strong reaction to some of the threads in which people were openly describing how they were using mutiple free accounts and scripts to make cash by gaming chairs. If I were an investor, I probably wouldn't take everything the CEO told me at face value; I'd probably poke around on the forums and in-world to get my own sense of things. Who knows though.

I agree with this.

As I said in another thread, the game will be "finished" once LL takes out everything, so that the only way to function is to either build and sell items or purchase money. There will be nothing else worth doing - no events, nothing.

coco

And that is due to the fact that paying tier is a mug's game.

I'd be happy to pay rent directly instead of paying it through Alliez, if what I got for my rent on the mainland matched what I get for my rent in the dAlliez islands. But it doesn't.

On the mainland I get an absentee landlord who never responds to their tenants. I get to pay 6x my rent up front, to "buy" the land from a speculator. I get a smaller prim quota. I pay more: $6-$10 a month for a "Premium" account plus the same land rent (plus the "cost" of the land). I can't terraform my land worth a damn. I get neighbors jammed right up against me who shouldn't be allowed within 10 miles of the land editor.

You want people to upgrade to Premium? Give them an incentive to do so. Playing silly-beggars with the economic system won't do it.

You want me to take an "ownership role", then give me a reason to take one on. Until you do, I'll just take a "rental role" and put my money into the Linden Economy through Alliez Mysterio and other businessfolk, and let Linden Labs get their money that way.

About a month ago, I found a parcel in the north of Arches that actually looked like something I'd be interested in "taking an ownership role" in. Bigger than I really wanted, but I realized I'd NEED that much space for the prims and privacy if I was buying on the mainland.

But at >US$200 to "buy" it plus upgrading to a premium account and paying tier (around US$50 per month, total) I decided I really didn't want a mountain zeppelin base THAT badly, and settled for a lagoon... half the space, half the cost, no ludicrous "land sale". Better deal all around.

I am happy to tell anyone who asks that I'm a "Basic account". I actually spend more than a premium account, but what I get for it is actually worth something, it's not just 512 square meters in a ghastly "first land" ghetto, or real money held in "equity" hostage to the linden economy.

(This deserves a separate post.)

Derision and mockery is childish. You all should have been over it by 6th grade at the latest, if you were ever childish enough to participate in it in the first place.

This ridiculous and infantile behavior reflects poorly on everyone who plays SL. That this sort of thing is the very essence of these forums is analogous exactly to the "Impeach Bush" plague inworld we endure now.

The same philosophy that brought us those signs also brings us these forums. In both cases, we see that lack of moderation, lack of any sort of civil, societal expectations, means that the lowest common denominator will always prevail and drive decent people out. In both cases, we see that the Lindens have shirked their responsibilities as owners and rulers of a world to actually dirty their hands taking care of the trickier aspects of running that world.

Although I don't know him, the ridiculous behavior that has gone on in this thread makes me an instant ally of Magnum Serpentine.

coco

Don't strain your brain on this one, Eggy. Remember who we're dealing with.




Need I say more?

I don't. I mean, you can pay tier with lindens, so this would just be a VERY slight reduction in teh cost of tier.

I think dwell should be tied to some function of status (basic or premium), tier, and other income. So people worth more to Linden Labs are worth more to people developing attractions.

I think stipends should be tied to something more finely graduated than "premium or basic", though. People who contribute to making SL a better place should be rewarded for it, no matter whether they're "developers" or "extras".

This also deserves a seperate post: I don't give a flying monkey flinging poo what you think, and I suspect many of the others you've aimed this at don't either.

There's only so much stupidity you can take from some people (and Magnum's stupidity has been going on a while now).

Shall I tell you what's childish? Posting in a forum with such inane, poorly-thought out, self-absorbed clap-trap constantly and expecting anybody to take you seriously. Maybe you should do a find on Magnum to see what I mean. Maybe you should actually take the time to see the way Magnum responds to other people when they hold viewpoints opposite to him/her/it/bot, or actually put a little thought into their argument.

Magnum is only ever interested in being a victim...oh, which brings me nicely onto my last sentance, I guess...

It suprises me not that you would be an instant ally.

Magnum,

How is it not gaming the system? THESE PEOPLE ARE AFK. They are not there actively using SL. They are not there attending an event for sake of attending it. Surely you cannot justify that. It doesn't surprise me you are neutral about them, as all you ever seem to want is everything handed to you without doing anything at all to deserve it.

Your sense of entitlement often blows my mind, and then you blame it on the nefarious FIC/Star Chamber (whatever the Star Chamber bullshit is about, I will never know). Why don't we blame it on the Goreans, eh? You seem perfectly capable of lumping an entire group of people as one and blaming them for your woes, so I blame the Goreans. It is their fault that the Developer Incentives are gone. If you can blame the FIC/Star Chamber for it, then what is fair is fair. It's all the Goreans' fault. Ridiculous? Absolutely - as ridiculous as you blaming a group of people for your problems.

What part of "up to a modest limit" did you miss? I'm pretty sure we've had this discussion before, I know you've been reading the threads where I've elaborated on it. I even used the example of Anshe, the richest person in the game, being worth 10 dwell...

If Anshe is worth 10, and your average land baron is worth maybe 6, and your average businessman maybe 4, some guy who Lindexes a few thousand a month and has a 4096 is worth 2, NOBODY is going to get into the top list by holding Salons.

But if your Basic is worth 1/6, and your ordinary premium is worth 1, bonody's going to get there running money chairs for Basic sccount holders either.

Because L$50 a week pays for 5 snapshots and then you're broke.

The purpose of the System was to make money for Linden Labs.

The effect of the System was to cost money for Linden Labs.

Therefore the System was gamed.

HOW HARD IS IT FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE REAL ECONOMY TRUPMS THE LINDEN ECONOMY EVERY TIME?

How about rent?

I don't know where your land is, or what you do, but I do know I'm paying rent on a parcel because I like the theme, I like having my house there, I like contributing to that area and being a part of that community.

If you have an 8192, tier on that is L$40. Rent half of it as 512s and you'll make your tier on the 8192.

But how do you rent a bunch of 512s?

You make the renters part of the community. They get a theme house or are allowed to build their own in-theme in a community village, or in a ring around the attraction, or whatever. Since the common land is providing part of the value of their land, you might be able to rent 10 400s for US$4 or the equivalent in Lindens, and the renter doesn't have to include the land or prims for their garden and screen-against-evil-neighbors.

They shouldn't need to get any other special privileges, beyond what being part of the land group gives them.

Then you better stay away from free real-world events, parks, museums, everything from Mardi Gras on down. And you better stay away from most pay events, because they're all subsidised by concession sales. You don't get people paying the full price up front for anything, and a lot of what people do end up paying is through mechanisms (like sales of food... avatars don't eat!) that SL doesn't have.

Ummm.

Tier on an 8192 is US$40 (L$40 would be awful nice.. )

At current Lindex rates that's about L$11000 / month.

That L$2750 / week.

Half of an 8192 is 4096, that's 8 512's, and would be L$343/week. That seems rather high. And since you have to put the 512's dead next to each other on this rental parcel or you won't have space to fit 8 in, you've got no infrastructure space to generate extra prims, nor much space for community facilities.

Sinec you can pay Tier in Lindens through Lindex, it sure does.

If dwell is staying, then LL needs to see about fine-tuning it to encourage people to create things that attract paying customers.

As for getting people to events. I have not, to my knowledge, ever gone to an "event" in SL. I may have wandered into one, but it was not due to any kind of decision that I was going to an "event". I rarely go to "events" in RL, for that matter. It's just too hard to get to a fixed place and time, and my avatar seems to have even less free time than I do.

Group IMs ... I've dropped groups just because of the number of IMs that go out that channel. LL needs to make group IMs (at least ones from officers) routed to email, like normal IMs, because as it is they end up having to use "votes" as IMs or repeat the IMs every so often to get people who were offworld.

This entire thread can be condensed into this one post.

*golf clap*

Ok, lemme dig back here... Some economist correct me if/where I'm wrong but...

Currently, we have a currency exchange. LL doesn't "print" any additional money for it, nor do they take any money out of the system with it - they are a middleman. Currently, Joe goes and puts L$ up there and Bob comes and buys those L$

While I think this is a brilliant idea(attaching stipend to tiers/higher tier-payers get higher stipends back) I think that if would basically be taking money away from LL. Now Joe goes and puts L$'s up on Lindex... But, if Bob isn't buying it and paying real-world currency, in order for Joe to "sell" it and get real world currency, that has to come from somewhere. If LL is going to use that money towards peoples stipends or tiers or anything, then they would have to put US$ into Lindex and pay Joe.

Free account holders benefit event hosts just as much as paid account holders do.

That's the problem.

Even with the "modest limit" the problem still arises.

Let's say Chip's worth a 5. (And how exactly you'd manage this "wealth" thing when people are cashing L$ in and out I'm not sure.) He has 10 other businesspeople over. That generates 45 dwell for that night. That is already more dwell than any event for non-business folks can make in equivalent time on a non-private island, because they'd need more than 40 premium members there and that would exceed the sim limit.

If a mall, say, held an event in a mall where business owners could stand and promote their stores, it would shoot into the popularity list no matter how many customers showed up, because all the business owners were there.

Also, is it 1/6 for a Basic account holder, no matter how rich they are?

Afaik:

Money is not printed for Lindex.

Money is printed for stipend, dwell, and L$ spending by Linden users.

Money is burned for upload fees, advertising fees, Find listing fees, and L$ exchanged for tier.

that's obviously a typo: my calculations are all in US$.

Tier on an 8192 is US$40.

Tier on a 512 is US$5.

You rent out the 512s or 400s or whatever you end up with for 512 rates. maybe make it 10 400s for L$250 a week each.

The houses you rent are not right next to each other, they're distributed around the event area (the rest of the 8192). The renter gets the land, and the house, and the view (which is a huge part of the value of the deal, and a big part of why I'm renting instead of owning myself), and they're not paying any more than they'd be paying for a piece of a First Land ghetto.

SL is not entertainment unless you can buy at least some in-game items. They are not necessities in the sense that they are needed for you to continue living. They are however necessary for people to continue playing SL, not because they'll die without them, but because they just won't be enjoying it otherwise and will leave.

If what LL wants is for more players to play SL, and to buy into it by taking up Premium membership, then they have to make it easier for people to get that foot in the door, and also pop up the bonuses for taking out Premium beyond just extra L$ (the free house was an excellent idea, IMHO). Tier is just a horrible model...



Why should I play a game if all it does is give me that negative emotion that comes from going without something I want? Why shouldn't I just hit the big red X and pull up Uninstall so that I no longer have to care about any of it?

Yes Logan that is the point, sorta. LL automates L$ trading by automatically taking an extra amount of money in USD every month (a stipend-tier payment analogous to the land-tier payment).
LL still acts as a middleman, though.
Basically right now a user has to say "Yes, I really want more money" N times, whereas the new system would allow a user to say, "Yes I want more money" 1 time, and LL would automatically buy it for him every week.
This would probably even stabilize the Lindex a bit, since you would have people buying smaller amounts of money instead of big fat lumps.
Heck, for all I care we could even set up a new, completely separate subscription-model-Lindex where people would explicitly list themselves as able to produce or willing to consume an X amount of lindens every month.

Does LL actually accept L$ for tier? If by "exchanged for tier" you mean "sold on Lindex for US$", then those L$ are not actually burned, just traded to someone else.

On the original topic, I'll add my vote to the notion that phasing out the DI payments was was mostly an cost-cutting measure.